Halo: Return
by GrayGray26
Summary: First novel, please review. It is 2653, the Covenant are again trying to remove humanity from the galaxy. Doctor Halsey must build better and stronger Spartans, armed with new technological, biological and tactical advances can they win?
1. Chapter 1

[Disclaimer thingy ma-giggy... yeah that thing: I do not own Halo or any of the Characters... But mainly Doctor Halsey in this case because the other I made up based on people in my life. But what the hay, as the URL at the top suggests this is Fan Fiction so enjoy =) Oh and if you want some more info on my book just head over to halo-mark-vii[dot]webs[dot]com where [dot] means . sorry for the inconvience... but thats FanFiction for you :)]

**Halo: Return**

_By Graham Ogden _

**Chapter 1 1032 hours, October, 7****th**** 2653/Military Calendar/Out There Alive (To Begin...)/Level 24, ONI Facility Branch 1, New Mombasa, Earth, Sol Star System**

She had survived.

_At least one of the Forerunner's technologies had come to some good use_, she mused. The last ship inside of the "Shield World", Onyx, had helped her escape. The others, however, had not. Inside of the planet Onyx's containment field, the Flood roamed free, escaped from their prison. Chief Mendez and the Spartans were all lost in the process of trying to escape. They had all wasted their lives in trying to help her escape. She would make sure that their deaths would not go unheard of.

A hundred and one years since she had been imprisoned within Onyx, all of that time lost. Time inside the Micro-Dyson Sphere was separate from reality; she had only aged a couple of weeks meanwhile it had passed over a century.

The darkly lit room made it almost impossible to see anything. Three focused lights beamed down from above chairs at the opposing side of the table with one more above her. The table was a finely cut oval shaped slab of wood, about nine metres wide and six metres long from her. There was a screen embedded into the table, one before her and three at the other side, one before each chair. The chairs were covered in black, thick and hard leathery upholstery. The cubed room was entirely blanketed by darkness, until the wall opposite became brighter to a grey. On the side walls two doors were propped up against either side of the screen.

Both of the doors opened and a heavily armed Marine entered from both doors. They moved around the table and across to her. They drew their weapons; MA5R-M2P Assault Rifles, and aimed at her, requesting her to give any metal, sharp objects or weapons to them. After she handed the men her bracelet and silver-plated watch they walked across and stood by the two doors. They dropped their guns by their sides and saluted with their left hands while standing at attention.

She stood up, moving the chair back slightly as she did. Two figures came out of the room to her right and one more from the left. The three silhouettes moved across to the chairs and saluted her before sitting down.

The main centre person sighed before stating, "As part of the Navel Code of Conduct, Section 7-G, you are hereby sentenced to three years in the Earth State Prison on Haputo, of charged by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). You are suspended on the account of child abduction, child abuse and almost every other rule we have a law for. How do you plead?" The individual spoke, a dark gravelled voice of an elderly male.

She sat silently, reencountering her memories as they bombarded her with pain and awe.

"...May we remind you, Doctor Catherine Halsey, that you are being sentenced at this moment? And failure to comply will result in a prolonged sentence!" The female agent said to Halsey's left.

Doctor Catherine Halsey sat on the opposite side of the desk to the three ONI Agents. Her grey hair was tightly knotted into a bun at the back of her head. The suit she wore consisted of a knee-length grey skirt, a white shirt with a grey over jacket that only reached to her elbows and a long black tie with a silver star situated at the base, just beneath her neck. Her once quirky face had started to become elderly; wrinkles had begun to form around her eyes and her forehead.

"I did what I had to do. My _duty_, as it were. The handful of lives that I may have ruined had saved the lives of every damned person throughout our pitiful empire." Halsey whispered, moving a stray hair away from her face.

"So how do you plead?" The main agent enquired again.

Halsey sat in silence looking across to the silhouetted faces as the lights reflected off of the foreheads and hair of the personnel. She sat perfectly still, staring directly into the darkened face of the main operative.

"Doctor Halsey, we must hear your reasoning behind this ghastly act." The final Spook said, on her right, in a male's deeper voice but still soothing as his dark skin flashed in the light from sweat.

"What do you want us to do Doctor?" The female asked, shifting in her chair.

"I need to do it again. I require that you grant me everything that I need and demand. I must create more Spartans. The Covenant is rising. They will bring back something unimaginable. They will have found Onyx, excavated its technologies and will rise again to wipe out humanity."

"I have two points to counter your argument. My first is; that you will never do such repulsive things ever again as long as I live and for as long as I live you will be locked away. My second point is that you're previous Spartan... John-177... my apologises... 117, destroyed the Covenant around a century ago and we have been cleaning the rest of the Covenant from this Galaxy since then. They shall not rise again." The third ONI agent countered.

"Supply some evidence for your ideas, and we shall reconsider." The main Spook said as the two either side glanced across at him. He leaned forward, glaring into Halsey's eyes, "give us evidence and then you might just not be thrown away into prison for the rest of eternity."

"I already have some. If you look at the screens beneath you, you can find all the information you would ever want about the Covenant's resurrection." Halsey said as, she herself, looked down towards the screens.

Documents enlarged and minimized, move about and opened. Pictures appeared of a massive sphere entering slipspace. Papers of unknown slipstream entrance and exit vectors of huge slipspace disruptions popped up and went away.

"And what are these supposed to mean to us, Halsey?" The female sighed.

"These documents show all the unknown slipspace events that have happened since my arrival. Those recorded did not have show any properties of materials made in the UNSC, meaning that they are not human." Halsey said as she scrolled down the list of unnamed measurements.

"...Which could also have been Insurrectionists." The main agent said, hasten to add.

"Wait a second, this objects size was over twenty-five thousand kilometres in diameter! There is no Naval ship that large, not that I am aware of anyway?" The second Spook exclaimed, rubbing the side of her face with her left hand.

"It could have even been asteroids! Those things pass in and out of Slipspace all of the time..." The Spook to her left countered.

"So I supposed that I should assume that these 'asteroids' are also to blame for the reports of three missing UNSC colonised planets?" Anger was starting to boil inside Halsey, but she suppressed it and continued. "Yes. I know about the missing worlds, and it's only a matter of time before every news team throughout space has it in their news reels. Something is happening to our colonies, and even you can't be that blind to the fact that no human has enough power to do that kind of damage."

"...Okay, Doctor Halsey, you have our attention." The third agent stated under his voice as he dabbed his damp brow with a tissue from his trouser pocket.

"We need to build up the defences around key planets and solar systems. More importantly, like I said earlier, we _will_ need Spartans. The Covenant must be stronger than before if they can wipe out planets and we have hardly changed over the past one hundred years. They will crush us; bury us into the ground if we don't start thinking about protecting the Inner Colonies with more than just better luggage scanners. You are going to need my help." Halsey said as she shifted in her chair, remembering when she forced people to go through that unbearable amount of pain and suffering to become a Spartan.

The group sat in silence for six very long heart beats, until the three ONI officers began to quietly converse with one another about her sentence and whether she, or someone else, should be able to begin _a_ new project.

"I would like to point out, if I may be so bold as to say, that I was allo... ordered to instruct the SPARTAN-I and –II Projects by Admiral Cole himself." Catherine said as a last minute thought to try and get herself out of the mess that had happened.

"Ma'am there is no record of you..." The female started until she stop, removed her glasses rubbing her eyes. When she replaced her spectacles she continued, "Well, so it is, I apologise."

The agents continued to mummer between themselves.

They eventually stopped and sat up straighter than they had already been, _which was almost impossible to how straight they were sat to begin with_, Halsey thought. They glared across the polished surface of wood into her cold eyes, "By the rights invested in us by the powers of the Office of Naval Intelligence, as of Admiral Cole's orders, '_Should Doctor Catherine E Halsey ever to return, she should be put under the immediate attention of any Office of Naval Intelligence personnel and to begin on any project she wishes_.' You are hereby resigned of your sentence and are to be placed at the head of this project, which shall be named as, RESSURECTED FOSSIL. You are also from here on promoted and will be given an office to facilitate you until you begin your project funded by us here at the Office of Naval Intelligence. However, beware Halsey; other projects will be created to deal with this new threat, don't get to comfortable thinking that you will be invulnerable."

Doctor Catherine Halsey twitched a smile before tipping her head to them, "Thank you."

The three Navel officers stood in unison and bowed together, as did she. They took their leave and walked back out of the doors that they had entered from, meanwhile Halsey continued to stand at the table. She persistently starred into the grey screen without movement, thinking of the horrors she had caused, the suffering she was going to and the pain within herself. Twenty seconds passed before she finally broke free from the delusions, and looked down to the surface of the table.

On the screen was the face and torso of a slender female. Her face was very thin with large eyes. A small nose was raised from her face in a two dimensional paradox. The thin lips moved and a very pronounced and delicate voice murmured, "Do you like what I did with their screens? It was extremely difficult to scan all of Admiral Cole's documents, decrypt the highly classified coding, find an appropriate signature, imprint it onto a pretend file and push it onto their monitors in that kind of time limit."

"You are a Fifth Generation 'Dumb' AI; that should have been child's play." Halsey said as she pressed her PDA to the display.

"Hey, you made me force myself into these systems, anything larger than this little slither I've left in here and someone would have detected me. So I just wanted you to see how hard it was for me to do that." The AI said as the panel flashed when the AI transferred from the ONI systems into her PDA.

"Thank you, Cybil." Halsey said in a sarcastic tone, which the AI disapproved of by folding her arms.

She turned around, placed the PDA into her right pocket and walked out of the room through a set of double doors at the back of the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 1059 hours, October, 7****th**** 2653/Military Calendar/Luck (Lost)/Level 7, ONI Facility Branch 1, New Mombasa, Earth, Sol Star System**

Returning from debriefing in the newly reformed Office of Naval Intelligence, she had began to contemplate the next step of her life. Even in her more recently appointed position at ONI, she still did not trust them. However, she could start again; new technology, new science and a new era.

Halsey walked down the cold, lifeless corridor to her newly prearranged laboratory. Her hands moved forward and she opened the doors. Her eyes wondered about the room, observing each of the equipment that held their arms out ready to greet her. The black granite walls highlighted the whiteness of the marble desktops and cupboard doors. The swirls and cracked patterns of the granite's natural colouring, reminded her of the lettering on Onyx. Table and long stripe lights were the only source of light in the circular room.

Instantly, she moved across the room to her new computer and began searching. She looked to find any evidence of the previous Spartans, mainly John... MIA. She dipped her head slightly before attempting to find the cause of his mysterious disappearance. Only one record had been made. _Shangheili?_ She pondered momentarily,

"But how had they got access to military databases" she silently whispered to herself. Despite the possibility of an illegal military disobedience to opening such a secured file, she continued.

**Great_Journey/Report_Logs/Shangheili/Arbiter/File_Report_Log_387117**

The [_Ark_] had been discovered and recovered by [_Enemy_Leader_], a full scale invasion, of both Shangheili and Human, soon after occurred. This was abruptly ended, when [_Big_Green_Husk_] reinitiated [_AI_Serial_Number:CTN 0452-9_] and the [_Resurrected_] Installation 04. Ignition of the Installation caused a "**presumable**" wipe out of the [_Parasite_Species:KFT7_] and Installation 04, with the possible damage if not full destruction of the [_Ark_]. The portal to the [_Ark_] was closed, in unison with the ignition of the Installation, bringing only half of The Pillar of Autumn [_ATTACHMENT CONTAINING SHIP DETAILS INCLUDED IN REPORT_] back to [_Home Planet_]. In this half of the ship was a [_Vanguard_]. Stated by this Shangheili was that the [_Big_Green_Husk_] was in the lost half of the ship. Investigation to the discovery of location SEIRRA-117 is still underway - CURRENTLY: **UKNOWN**.

She pushed her slightly cracked glasses up the bridge of her nose, with a disgruntled sigh. But he had done it. Truth and the Covenant, the Flood - it had finished.

He had fought for Earth and all of her colonies.

Even to his dying breath.

How could he have made it? The ring, if lit would have killed him. They killed anything sentient enough to sustain the Flood. This was based on the information given to her by Cortana at about 2552.

However, living in the past was something she never liked to do. Only thing she could do now was to keep moving into the future, to build bigger, stronger and faster Spartans.

Earth had been fighting the remnants of the last Covenant since 2562. Only to the surprise that all they had been doing was killing nothing. The Covenant was only using those who died as a distraction from the real reconstruction of the Covenant, for protection. She knew this but everyone else was blinded by false light. They all thought that they would be safe, not knowing that the Covenant was larger than a few ships.

The previous Spartans were the only thing that slowed down the war enough to win it. However, they had become obsolete; she would make them more durable and flexible to the different fights that they may encounter. Now would be the perfect time to begin, as the Covenant was not wiping out the colonies, which would give time to prepare. This time she would make sure the Spartans would not only slowed down the Covenant but stop it completely, if not start to get the tide to turn the other way. Maybe this time Humanity would win, without as many causalities.

"Be careful, I do not want you to hurt my new project!" The Prophet exclaimed. "Those containers are hard to acquire, and are exceedingly fragile!"

The Kig-Yar [Kig-Yar/Jackals] placed down the large container, confused about its future purpose.

Warm plasma inside bubbled as it hit the floor. The pink fluid glazed in the purple lit room as the Prophet dismissed the bird like creatures and considered their soon death for knowing too much.

This experiment broke every law of the newly reformed Covenant. Only _he_ could know of this test, no one else.

He violently tapped the keys on his chair to initiate a full system quarantine of his room to stop anyone from discovering his heresy.

The once bright purple room became dull with the emergency red plasma lit conduits throughout the ceiling and walls. His once glorious home had now become his concealing tomb, captivating him from the outside world.

He immediately started on his new _pet_. He began by tapping a control which released a green solution into the plasma filled container. A thin slither of gray metals in the shape of a sphere acted like a catalyst as the green solution bonded to the outer surface. To increase the ageing process, he released a slow constant of toxins into the fluids.

This would now be the more annoying side of his experiment; he would have to wait for years on end for these cobbled together pieces of pure terror to become something great. This new project would surely uphold the Covenant, and finally destroy the Humans.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 1345 hours, November, 24****th**** 2654/Military Calendar/No More Dead Heroes (Final Destination)/Goliath Airport, District 9, Adraulus, Alpha Coronae Borealis Star System**

Doctor Halsey was concerned that the UNSC (United Nations Space Command) had lost all of her, and Colonel Ackerson's, previous data on the past SPARTAN projects. This would complicate the augmentation process; however, the gene pool would be able to be larger. On the other hand, if the gene pool was too large it could have terrible drawbacks. Her first encounter with the SPARTAN-IIIs was very unpromising, as their lack of strength and discipline was very... poor.

She walked along the wide hallway filled with people travelling to gate 29. This was the ship that would take her to her final destination, Earth.

She had been travelling, for the past year, around the galaxy to all of the colonies of Humanity, "recruiting" young children who had had their lives destroyed, corrupted and twisted by the Covenant. There was now only two children remaining, one of which she wanted to save till last. This last child was one of the main reasons why she had began her new project.

He was her prized jewel.

She would make him to be the best he could be. He was, dare she say, luckier than John. The last "recruit" was a young boy, warped by the loss of his family at only the age of six. Within a small amount of time since their death, he had moved between seven planets, all destroyed by the Insurrectionists or Covenant upon his arrival. Now, she would offer him a choice; to live his life as it is or he could leave his old life behind and become something both stunning and brutal. He would be able to take his revenge on the Insurrectionists and Covenant.

He would become a Spartan.

She walked onto the transport and was required to give her passport, retina scan, blood sample and ticket to truly enter the craft. The security was extreme, even though there were no armed guards anywhere to be seen.

The airhostess stood before her with bright golden hair tucked up into her matching blue hat. Golden threads proved her worth as a Senior Flight Officer, which was only emphasised by her slightly wrinkled face and delicate touch.

Doctor Halsey watched in jealousy as the lady passed her through the locked door into the corridor of compartments with a lifeless smile.

The long hallway stretched out before her to the end of the plane, attached every two metres were doors leading off into small, cramped booths. Lights lay embedded in the ceiling glowing in a yellow and gold illuminating the cream walls. She searched along the length of the ship and eventually found the correct dormitory.

Upon entry, she discovered a young man lying across one of the beds with his green army hat covering his face. He had a good build of shape and was tremendously tall, his feet dangling over the edge of the six-half foot bed. His arms extended over his chest crossed over with freckles dotted along his exposed arms.

This was her accompaniment, Lieutenant Woodcock.

She bumped his foot and he immediately stood and saluted, shouting as he did. "Officer on the deck!" He bellowed, panting from horror rather than exhaustion.

A smile flickered across Halsey's face at the shocked Marine. After several seconds for him to discover who stood before him, the questions began.

"Okay, Doctor. Remind me again: why we are here?" He asked, now sitting down to gather his thoughts.

"We are here to find the last two candidates for my assignment. You do realise it was not necessary to join me during the journeys between planets." She said now moving across the room to her bed.

"You know I do. UNSC protocol requires that an officer must remain with an indicated civilian, in this case you, at all times," he said firmly, "but after travelling to all of these planets, I still do not understand why you picked me?"

Halsey suddenly felt a sense of déjà vu, as she had relived the same steps she had done the first time, for the Spartan II's. She looked away from him in disgrace, at herself not at him.

"That is precisely why I chose you," she now turned to fiercely gaze into his deep blue eyes, "You remind me of my first counterpart for these journeys, 136 years ago. You can keep a secret. I have read your files Lieutenant"

She reflected on those past times. She remembered the first time she saw John, when she chosen him to be the leader of Blue Team and the last time she had seen him, leaving him in the asteroid with the remaining SPARTAN-IIs.

She was then forced back to reality by the thought of her having conscripted more of these children into the UNSC and force them to have to relive the awful but essential pain they would have to face, to become a Spartan.

This time, however, it was going to be different.

They _would _survive.

By the sudden thought of the deaths that she had caused, and will soon be doing again via the augmentation, she got up off of her bed. She neatened her grey skirt, and walked off to find a means of occupying herself until they reached their final destination.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 1426 hours, November, 26****th**** 2654/Military Calendar/Keep What You Steal (Last but not Least)/Elysium Orphanage, England, Earth, Sol Star System**

Doctor Halsey and Lieutenant Woodcock stood behind the rusted red steel gates of an orphanage. Halsey wore a loose, pale spring breeze yellow dress, Roses stitched along the edge of the fabric. A cotton cardigan was neatly wrapped around her arms, with two of the buttons linked at the bottom of the Portuguese blue material. Her hair was tied up into an orderly bun at the back of her head.

The Lieutenant wore a white collared shirt, a small insignia of the manufacture. A bandage was tightly concealed around his right arm just above his elbow. He wore D'Cappiu jeans, held up by a brown leather belt. Brogues leather shoes sat comfortably on his feet, the white sunlight shining off of the polished surface.

Their casual clothing was a two part idea; one is that it will help to make them look like they are there to adopt one of the children and the other reason is that the style might help not to intimidate the child. The two of them stood looking over the gate to see whether they could externally find the child they were looking for.

Huge trees filled the grounds within the large entertainment facility. The earth was a merging of grass and sand which stretched out to the furthest reaches of the region. A row of pushing children lined up behind a slide and waited impatiently for their turn, many of them pushing and shoving others out of the way. A tall fortress like structure was covered in children jumping from section to section; a few hung from handle bars which draped down from pipes protruding from the main centre construct. A dome extended across the majority of the space.

With great reluctance for not finding the boy, they entered the complex.

They followed a twisting corridor to the exit on the far side of the building, which opened up into a huge dome of catastrophe.

Children were wildly charging about; out of control pushing, grinding and bashing each other around. _Presumably_, Catherine Halsey thought, _they are just viciously pounding each other_. However, after a brief few seconds to examine them, she realised that they were playing a coordinated game.

"King of the Hill," She whispered to herself.

"Pardon?" Woodcock enquired.

"Never mind,"

Halsey briefly looked at a small thumbnail picture of a small boy around six, bright blond hair with sea blue eyes who seemed to be starring back at her. She looked around to find the child. She stopped after she had recognized that he was playing the game, and seemingly winning.

He was holding the entire hill by himself, while the others required teams of two children. He seemed to relish the challenge of three teams against him. Halsey watched in anticipation of the odds stacked against him, until she was crudely interrupted by the Lieutenant.

"So exactly which one of these... animals are the one we are looking for?" He asked, dodging numerous children running about him.

"Him," She said, holding up a pale skinned finger pointing to the victorious child.

Four children now swarmed around him trying to reacquire the hill. Doctor Halsey shouted at them to stop them from further damaging the boy. The playground fell to a deathly silence at this sudden shock of anger. She gracefully walked across to the boy, brushing her hair away from the front of her face. She come to stand before the boy and knelt, holding out her hand. She slightly retracted her offer as the boy growled at her gesture.

"What do you want?" The boy snarled.

"Is that anyway to talk to an adult?" She returned, again holding out her hand.

"Sorry ma'am" he said, unwillingly shaking her hand.

"Thank you. Might I ask what your name is?"

"Graham."

"Do you like to play games, Graham?"

"Yeah, I like King of the Hill a lot! Do you want to play with me? You can be on my team if you want, I always win."

"I am sure you do. However, I thought we could play a different game."

The boy shrugged to her request.

"This is an old fashioned currency used until the late 23rd century. I am going to flip this coin. However, before it hits the ground, I want you to call out what side will land upwards, the man's face or the bird with arrows." She said turning the coin over in her hands. "Do you understand?"

The tall boy nodded intently, squinting with his deep blue eyes at the coin.

She flipped the coin and just as it was about to pass her hand, Graham snatched it.

"Eagle!" He yelled, obviously having some knowledge of the animal kingdom. Halsey moved closer and pried his hand open to reveal...

...The greatest thing imaginable. The time was drawing nearer, the creation almost completed. The last of the processes were narrowing down. The brain is developed externally, allowing for limitless growth. Sub-dimensional sonic waves are presented to the creature, bombarding it in to shape. The only thing left to do was wait the last few cycles for the experiment to become whole. It would be the greatest thing for the Covenant, the backbone to annihilate their enemies.

Answering Halsey's guess, she turned to walk away. The boy was perfect. He had all of the attributes to make him an ideal addition to her project.

Graham was left stood at the top of the hill with the coin in his hand, until five kids mauled him to the ground. She brushed past Woodcock.

"Was he not the right one?" He asked as she continued walking

"No. He is wonderful, beyond what I expected," Halsey answered without turning to face him. "He is rather brutal though but you'll sort him out I'm sure."

"If those are the doctor's orders," He smirked.

The entire journey back to Zenith Prime, their command centre for the SPARTAN project, Halsey pondered on how she was going to inspire the children.

Suddenly, something more pressing came to her attention, a soldier requires armour. She had enjoyed designing the previous Spartan armours. The elegance and destructive power had always encouraged her to make them better each and every time.

She had discovered though, that these next generation Spartans would not be the SPARTAN-IV program, as she had first contemplated, but actually the SPARTAN-VII program. The previous four projects had in fact been simulated AI systems built with the Human genetic code in mind.

This concerned her.

It could very well cause problems during the augmentation process as there had been no true data on the effects of organic genetic re-composition. Which meant, that as the DNA is ripped apart and put back together again, there could be even more fatalities and genetic screw-ups.

She tried to take her mind off of the disadvantages as she got up out of her seat on the spacecraft to go to the nearest restaurant for a lobster dinner accompanied by Lieutenant Woodcock.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 2236 hours, December, 12****th**** 2654/Military Calendar/Part of the Plan (Where it All Began)**

Doctor Halsey sat at her granite desk, illuminated by a small row of lights hanging from the ceiling above her head. She was never particularly fond of granite because of its radioactive properties, but the entirety planet was almost granite so there was no real way to get away from it. She had thanked her decorators for their generosity for putting up a hundred and twenty year old photo of her and her Spartan IIs, before the augmentations. All seventy-eight cadets had stood for a photo that measured three metres across, taking up a large portion of the wall in her room. On the other side, however, there were monitors for tracking what would one day be the apparatus linked up to these Spartans as they live through the pain she would never want to endure. In front of her was an entire wall of convex glass that overlooked a large underground hanger. The complex lay twelve kilometres underground, with one wall missing on the side of a cliff. The blast doors had to be specially reinforced to meet the requirements for having the base "safe". This meant having seven metres of pure Cysterleen, a highly resilient metal only recently discovered which could withstand a 28 megaton nuclear blast.

"_Doctor Halsey, they've arrived."_ The sudden call of Lieutenant Woodcock came in over the speakers in the office.

_Time to go and welcome the next generation of children - candidates_, she corrected, _to the family_.

She stood up, straightened her grey skirt and entered onto the balcony above the hanger floor. Before her stood two-hundred fifteen Spartans, each accompanied by a personal trainee, inside the hanger beneath her. Massive D77H-TCI Pelicans hung from the ceilings and protruded from the walls. M932B Scorpion and DM27F Grizzly Tanks sat around the edge of the room facing towards the frightened children with deathly eyes.

Now, how would she begin? She remembered the first time she said this speech; she had to keep it simple.

"All of you have been called upon to serve. You will be trained and will become the best we can make you. You will fight to protect Earth and all of her colonies. You will become Spartans; you will kill and destroy every last Covenant troop and hierarchy. You shall not finish there though. You will then be sent to go and fight out the creases in the societies of humanity, the Insurrectionists." Several of the candidates began to stop worrying and listened intently, just as she had recognised from the first time. The oddly dim lights made it almost impossible to see anyone; nevertheless, she still spotted Graham.

Now this would be easier, with her good luck charm.

She took a confident step forward; but not to close to the edge though because, although she did not have vertigo, she still felt uneasy. "I will not lie to you. You will never see your parents again. You cannot leave here. This place will become your home; this place will also become your tomb. All of those who try to leave will be strictly quarantined until they see the errors of their ways. These candidates will not become Spartans." She turned to Lieutenant Woodcock, "Take them to the barracks."

"Alright recruits! Get into bed on the double; you've got a full day ahead of you tomorrow!" He bellowed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6 0500 hours, December, 13****th**** 2654/Military Calendar/Through Your Hoops (First Day on the Job)**

The sudden jolt woke and flipped Graham in his bed. His instincts shouted at him, fight back. Instantly, he jumped onto his hands and feet and lashed out to a mysterious figure with a cow prod. The man, seemed to be in his mid twenties, and would soon have a black-eye. Graham growled and snarled at the figure as he tried to shove Graham back onto the bunk beds. He jabbed Graham with the cow prod again and he fell to the floor from the sudden shock.

"Get up and smarten yourself out recruit!" The man roared.

Graham simply stopped snarling and clambered to his feet and stood there. He now got a clearer look at the man. He stood sharp and tall with short-cut ginger hair. His green uniform highlighted his colourful ribbons and name tag which read, Lt. Woodcock. The man grabbed Graham's right arm and raised it up to his head.

"This is called a salute, son. You will do this whenever you meet someone or to greet someone doing it to you." The Lieutenant rumbled, now bringing his mouth across to Graham's ear, "Just because Doctor Halsey ordered me to look out for you doesn't mean I have to like you."

Graham nodded slowly in submission to the Lieutenant's gesture.

"Alright recruits into the shower, back out here, get changed and head outside." The tall man ordered, pulling out a small wooden box from under one of the bunk beds.

At the sudden command, the hundred Spartans in the room moved quickly off into the warm showers, came out, got changed and were outside within twenty minutes.

As Graham walked outside into the freezing cold, the Sun was just peering over the hills in the distance, leaving a balmy orange radiation over the sky. Each blade of wheat in the fields was highlighted by a golden hue. The sand beneath Graham's feet was peppered with small rounded pebbles. The buildings were on the edge of a dense forest which seemed to stretch off over either side of him, glowing from the rising Sun. The morning air was crisp and soothing with the smell of pine and other rich tree scents filled his lungs.

"Alright you little brats, get moving. 100 push-ups! I meant now Spartans, move!" The ginger haired Lieutenant shouted. "Good, that's better. 1 - 2 - 3- 4..."

Graham's arms felt like they were on fire, he growled in pain and collapsed on the floor. One of the other men walked across to him and jabbed him with a cattle prod. Graham flipped over and hurriedly continued with the push-ups.

"98 - 99 - 100. Congratulations, now give me a 100 sit-ups. Marines hold down their feet!"

With this order all of the men that surrounded them stood in front of each of the children and completed the order by standing on the children's feet.

One boy next to Graham snatched his feet out from beneath the Marine and launched himself at the fallen soldier. The boy had "Spartan - 444" stencilled on the back of his shirt with his name above that, Michael. Michael repeated punched the soldier in the face, causing the man's nose to bleed, until he got pried away from the injured Marine by five other Marines. The Lieutenant came across and pinned the boy's feet to the ground with pegs, gave him a jolt with the cattle prod and left the boy to finish his sit-ups.

Graham gulped his dry throat and continued with his sit-ups, trying to forget about the shirring pain through his stomach and legs.

After they had finished the sit-ups the Lieutenant shouted another order and everyone followed him, Graham rushed across to the other boy.

"Hey," Graham whispered, "Michael, where do you think we are?"

Michael turned his head still running in line with the other children and said, "Who cares, I'm getting out as soon as I can."

Graham simply shrugged and continued running. The Marines followed behind them copying their movements as they zigzagged over the mud. As they continued to dodge either way they came across a large granite structure, columns jettison from the ground holding up the roof of the building. The black building glowed in the orange haze, as they nearer the entrance of the construct.

The Lieutenant halted outside the bulky stone doors and turned to face the children, "This is your new classroom, enjoy it as this will be your only down time for the next ten years of your life." He cracked a small smile, as the doors opened allowing entrance. He made a few gestures to the marines and without hesitation shuffled the children into the complex.

The entire building was just one room, filled with desks with numbers stencilled on the seats. In the centre of the room was a large table, lightly pulsing in a pale blue. The room calmed down as everyone sat at the designated benches associated to the numbers written on their shirts (this was based on certain strands of DNA rather than numerical counting like the previous generations of Spartans).

Once the task was completed the lights in the room dimmed, in perfect correlation to the brightening of the centre table. The beating blue light now dominated the room, bathing the granite in a misty sapphire.

The rhythmic pulsation increased in speed until it became nothing but a continuous blaze. As it finished, it stopped, drawing itself into a fine point in the middle of the desk exploding out like a supernova. The sudden shockwave startled some of the kids resulting in a few shrieks and squeals. A small fairy sized light filled the once violent explosion dancing and prancing about, until it began on an odyssey around the classroom. It paraded around the area inspecting the children, until finished, when it shot off back to the centre where the light grew into a large sphere. Slowly, it refined itself into a Human body. As it did so it became slender, gentle and delicate resembling a female. She stayed crouched before the class, as clothes became visible upon her body. A long tunic straightened as she stood facing the classroom, surrounded by the small children.

"Hello, my name is Cybil; I am your new teacher. I shall show you everything you will need to know to become the best at anything you put your mind to." The fragile creature explained. "You will become the best we can make you; you will become fast, brave and strong. You will become Spartans; the strongest of all soldiers, they could never be beaten."

As she said this the room became filled with beautiful hills and dazzling oceans. Three hundred people stood on a flat stripe of land between a large cliff and the sea in front of the small cavern. Cybil stepped off of the table and walked across the room furthest away from these people, as she turned thousands of other poured out from beneath her feet storming towards the small group of people. Cybil identified the larger group as the Persians, and the small group as the Spartans. The Spartans fought valiantly and stood victorious as the Persians attacked in wave after endless wave.

Food was now dispensed through a circular hole in the desks, which they sat at. A small biscuit and a glass of milk now sat on the table in front them.

As Graham started to devour the cookie Cybil morphed into one of the tiny soldiers, only larger. All of the desks in the room were sucked into the floor, forcing the children to sit on the ground. She stood tall in the Spartan armour, as she described the various advantages that made the Spartans superior in battle. She pointed at the large biceps on her arms explaining how the warriors were trained from the young ages of about what they were, 5 or 6.

Graham's stomach groaned from the lack of food. He grabbed it, in hope that it would stop. As he did this the boy next to him whispered into his ear.

"Hey, you still hungry? Have some of these, I nicked them while the others weren't looking." The boy said holding out four cookies.

"Thanks!" Graham replied taking two of the cookies, leaving the other boy with some for himself. "My name's Graham, what's yours?"

The boy turned to show him his back. "The name is Lewis. Don't start thinking I'm gonna be your friend. You've gotta work your way up." he smiled, his freckles glinting in the ominous blue light.

Graham turned to the other boy next to him, Michael, and offered him a biscuit. Michael thanked him as he took one of the savoury snacks.

"Please go back to your places and stand where your desk was." Cybil ordered, her hand sweeping the classroom. "I just need to test you to make sure that we have a starting point for you to improve."

The class became a buzz of murmuring as everyone moved about to their places. When they stood on the metal plate concealing their chairs, large cylinders dropped down from the ceiling.

Trapped inside of the tube Graham started to panic, he hated being in tight places.

The dark tube began to lighten from the ground up; as it did it revealed two aliens. The two creatures stood there, tall and deadly. Their split mouths opened as they roared into action.

Graham instinctively fell to the floor to stand on his hands and feet. He growled back at them as the closest alien punched down into the ground - the ground where Graham had previously been. He had jumped to the side and was getting ready to jump onto the creature by the time it had realised where he was. He lurched forward, landing on the monster's back, attempting to pull off some of its blue plated armour.

The other, meanwhile, had moved around the back and was ripping Graham away. Graham lashed back, kicking the beast in its stomach releasing him from its grasp. The two entities turned to face him, their black eyes boring into his soul.

He flinched, allowing them the opportunity to capture him. The one on his left grasped his arm as the other cocked its hand into a fist. The alien now holding him now spun around, launching Graham into the other fist. Just as the blow was about to hit the tubes came up and he flew through the air into the person in front of him. They fell to the floor just opposite Cybil.

The girl who he had fallen into pushed him off as he tried to return to his feet. As she turn to apologise to the "teacher" Graham tried read her name, but couldn't succeed in doing so as her long matte black hair covered half of it up only allowing for the first two letters, "AP". He contemplated on how to say sorry to her later but was rudely halted by Cybil demanding an apology.

Graham apologised, returned to his now present desk and began to look around the room for his new friends, Michael and Lewis.

"Okay, it is now time for you to go to the playground. Have fun!" Cybil instructed.

The room, again, became a buzz of excitement as everyone herded towards the door. Graham looked around and found that Michael had already pushed his way to the front.

When Michael realised that Graham was towards the back he shoved everyone aside like dolls and stood next to him and Lewis. The doors swung open and the group of children swarmed out in to the open, to be met by Lieutenant Woodcock. Being at the back, Graham tried to escape back into the classroom but was abruptly stopped by three Marines. Michael stormed forward; fists cocked and lurched at them.

His efforts where hastily blocked, as they wrapped him into a series of wires, tangling his arms together. His feet however were free to move and, after the Lieutenant finished his lecture on good behaviour, back kicked one of the marines in his soft male organs. The marine fell to the ground, crippled by the blow.

The group of children were marched along to the "playground", which turned out to be a series of platforms, pulleys and ropes all in a stationary orbit about a central platform which beheld a bell. This platform only had three main attachments to get to it: a rope to walk on, a rope to slide down and a bridge which had no banisters.

"Alright, I want 3 equal lines of you all!" The Lieutenant bellowed.

The instructors moved towards them, prods in hand. The group of children moved speedily off into three lines.

"The people at the front will be team 1, the row behind them, team 2 and so on and so forth. Do I make myself understood, or does someone not get it?"

No reply.

"I'll leave you and your teams to decide how to get there. Although, if I was you though I would make sure I wasn't last. Food can be such a scarce thing in the UNSC (United Nations Space Command). Okay, walk off into your groups then!"

Graham looked to his left and right, to be meet by the same girl before, April. At least now he could say sorry. And on the opposing side was another girl taller than both of them, "Alys Spartan - 458". They walked off together and stood there silently, until Graham apologised to April.

"On the way in I looked at the paths. I can only see one way to and from that middle one. We'll have to get to the basket and get to that top platform and go across that bridge to get there." Alys said before anyone could get a word in to confront her.

After a small time to consider this Graham realised she was right about the route to get there. He turned to April, "Okay, so what are you good at then?"

"I'm fast, real fast," April blurted.

"Good enough. Okay just run for that basket and hold it for us," Graham ordered as she nodded in confirmation.

"On your marks! Get set..." Lieutenant Woodcock shouted while everyone prepared themselves to make the mad dash for any part of the structure. "Go!"

Everyone started running just to try and make it to the construction of interconnected trees. Everyone ran at the same pace, everyone ran somewhere. Graham had only just reached one fifth of the distance to get there, meanwhile April was already half of the way. He gasped at her speed as he tried helplessly to run faster. Alys was just ahead of him. Her wavy brown hair fluttered in the wind as she sped away from Graham.

Graham looked around to find where everyone else was just before he jumped into the basket. Some of the children were shoving their way past others as they climbed the ramps up to the other platforms. One boy fell past them as they gradually lifted themselves to the platform. The mechanism was design to dissipate huge quantities of energy, so as they pulled five metres of rope the basket only moved by one metre. After about five minutes of tugging at the rope, the basket reached its destination. They clambered out onto the platform and made their way across to the bridge. The bridge was made of a few slabs of wood wrapped onto two lines of rope, some of the planks, however, were already; broken, lost, fallen or slowly being eaten by insects. Graham turned away at the thought of falling, he hated heights. Alys twisted about to face him.

"Come on, its just over there, we can get there. Let's go!" Alys shouted as she started her journey across, after April had already hopped across with ease.

As Graham wearily made his way across the bridge, he looked past the two girls on the other side at another group who had somehow made it to the top. They were moving towards the bell at an alarming rate. Graham forgot his close death and lurched forward towards the other end. He met up with Alys and April and rung the bell together... after the other group. A large silver poll, jettison from the ground up to the bell, provide a quick decent to the ground to cross the finish line. They ran together across the finish line... in fifth place.

Graham made his way across to a tree and collapsed to catch his breath. _This was my fault_,_ we lost because of me_, he realised. They did not work together when they moved in the basket and they did not go across the bridge together. The other teams beat them, he had lost. He was not first, and he despised failing compared to anything else.

He got up trampled past his team and marched along on his hands and feet, like an animal. He walked up to the winners who stood triumphant, and punched one of them in the face. The other two moved to his sides and jumped at him. Suddenly, he was reminded of his favourite game, king of the hill. He cocked his fist and swung again as he moved forwards, smacking the kid in the nose this time while the other two fell over each other. He jumped forward to land on the two children laid on the floor, but was stopped by a sudden jolt of pain slithering through his body. He fell to the floor beside them, flailing about on the ground. Two marines came across and held him above the ground by his arms.

"Your _first_ day! And you have already caused an injury!" Lieutenant Woodcock bellowed from the other side of his wooden desk.

The Lieutenant sat in his uniform still. It consisted of a long sleeved white shirt that had darkened from overuse and covered in patches of mud that hung loosely from his battle hardened form. Over the top of his shirt was a camouflaged waistcoat, a left breast pocket held a small notepad and the name tag on the outside. On the other side was a series of medals that glinted in the peachy lit room. A scar was etched just beneath the right hand side of his mouth that reached around the side of his face.

The expertly carved piece of furniture sat on the furthest side of the timber room away from the door. The man sat angrily between the wall and desk, his arm crossed and back straight. Behind him was a stunning motif, an oil painting of beast like soldiers which look like Humans but not at the same time. The painting showed a large wheat field with blue and purple smears running up the side of the hill from the right. On the left, stood tall and proud, were the magnificent alien figures. The closest individual was fighting with one of the purple smears; its orange face plate fluorescently glowing from a bright blue pulsing orb in the smears hand.

_I want to be like that_, Graham thought, _they must be those Spartans these people keep talking abou_t.

"Okay, -387, explain yourself; why did you hit them?" The Lieutenant asked, frowning as he did so.

Graham replied with his infinite answer, "I didn't win."

The Lieutenant leaned forwards placing his intertwined hands on the desk, "I know that, now why did you hit them?" He asked, his temper burning through his voice.

Graham sat silently on the padded chair, slouched backwards, with his head facing down at the floor.

"If you do not answer I'll have you..."

The Lieutenant was halted mid-sentence by the entrance of an old lady. He suddenly looked up in a jolt of surprise. When he realised with a heartbeat; who it was, it lurched upwards and saluted like a statue.

_She's the lady that gave me the coin_, Graham thought.

Graham stood and executed the same but new gesture he had learnt earlier by the Lieutenant. The women slightly bowed her head, glaring at him in shock by the salute. She turned to Lieutenant Woodcock, who starred back at her. The Lieutenant stood with a more authorial salute than Graham, except for an expression of disbelief chiselled into his face.

"Did you teach him that?" The lady asked.

"Yes, this morning. But this is the first time he has done it out of free will." He smiled sarcastically.

She turned back to Graham, "It is okay, you can put you hand down now. My name is Catherine Halsey."

Graham followed the order, smiling behind his unmasked face at the jealousy coursing through Lieutenant Woodcock's mind. Graham remand standing, however. He did not want to be moaned at again.

"What's the matter? You told me he was disobedient and attacked the other students." Halsey demanded, still starring at Graham as he stood with a smirk cheerfully placed upon his childish face.

"This _boy_ jumped at Spartan-739, broke his nose, and almost knocked-out Spartans-863 and -365!" Woodcock snapped back.

She looked at Lieutenant Woodcock and back to Graham, "Lieutenant, leave the room."

"Not with that terror, you will have to have someone els..."

"...Now!" She commanded.

The Lieutenant followed the order and, with reluctance, he left.

Graham tried to speak and defend himself but before he could she had already walked past him and picked him up onto the chair he was previously sat on. She moved around the other side of the desk, starred into his sea blue eyes and gracefully sat on the finely cut wooden chair and sighed.

"Do you remember me Graham? I gave you this coin."

She held a silver round object in her left hand. Graham twitched slightly.

Reading his movement like a book, she responded, "My name is Doctor Halsey, I want you to be perfect. I want to make all of those students back outside, even the ones you damaged, to be perfect."

Graham sat looking straight past her at the magnificent canvas behind her; the action of a thousand worlds and deaths captured into one piece of artwork.

"I can see you, looking at that painting rather than me. Glorious isn't it? They are Spartans, _my_ Spartans, much like the ones that you and your class were learning about today. Strong, swift and agile, they could never die..." Doctor Halsey stopped before she would continue. How could they never die, many Spartans had died before her very eyes. The memories of them were rotting her mind, burning the remaining memories, only leaving the deaths to linger on in her mind. "That is what you will be one day Graham, but you won't if you don't tell me what happened. So why did you hit the other boy?"

He repeated his infamous phrase, "I didn't win" as he, in contradiction to his earlier pose, now sat bolt-upright, daring enough to look straight into her eyes..

"So what are we going to do with you then?" She whispered to herself. To this remark Graham simply shrugged.

Doctor Halsey slightly tilted her head at his extreme notable hearing. She leaned forward onto the desk before her and scowled at his behaviour, "Woodcock?"

The ginger hair man burst through the door before she had even finished calling him. He moved straight across to the boy and tripped over.

To this sudden excitement Graham laughed at the man sprayed out across the floor.

Doctor Halsey looked at Woodcock at the floor he tripped on, which had nothing on it apart from a shimmer of light, and then to Graham. His pupils glowed in a blood-red haze.

She immediately moved around the desk and covered his eyes and the shimmer on the floor faded. Lieutenant Woodcock rose to his feet and raised his fist to punch the boy again.

Halsey flew back and hit the wall from an explosive force, revealing his eyes again. The room became oddly lit and small objects began to float around, as if in zero gravity. The Lieutenant floated frozen in the air unable for his fist to hit home.

Eventually Graham collapsed after he started breathing fast and heavily. He rolled along the floor, unconscious, and the Lieutenant fell over again. Halsey shouted for assistance. Five Marines ran in to pick up Graham and the Lieutenant.

"Take the boy to the med-lab; I want to see _inside_ his head now!"

Doctor Halsey sat impatiently twiddling a pen in her left hand as she used her right to navigate a microscopic camera inside of Graham's head. Lieutenant Woodcock stood beside her, looking at the boy rather than the screen. They stood in a small quarantined room with very little and only amount of light produced was by the screen. In front of them was a series of dials, controls and computers with screens. Beyond that was a window revealing a small blond haired boy lying on a table in the middle of the room. Around him mechanical arms moved about him in jarring, but precise, movements.

The screen displayed the inside of the child's head, a camera embedded in one of the arms excavated through blood vessels and across parts of his brain.

After sitting in the uncomfortable steel chair for six minutes, Halsey started to sit back slightly in her chair from boredom. Suddenly, a diminutive anomaly caught her attention, "That's it!" she blurted.

The Petty Officer looked at the screen, flinched away and slowly started to turn back to the display again.

On screen it showed a small walnut with a yellow fungus growing along the joint between the two halves of the blob. Doctor Halsey rotated and moved the camera closer to the irregularity in the structure of the body. As she did it began glowing yellow, she looked up away from the screen to the boy on the table. His eyes were glowing red behind his eyelids.

"Got you!" she sighed.

She moved the camera closer, but found it increasingly difficult as the glowing swelled. Static overcame the camera and began to affect the lighting in the two rooms. Halsey removed the probe and thankfully the abnormality disappeared.

"I want to scan his head now! We need to see what we are dealing with here. It could compromise the entire project." Doctor Halsey ordered, moving out of her chair across to the door. In confirmation, Lieutenant Woodcock saluted.

Within half of an hour Graham was unconscious on a table about to enter a cylinder container to be scanned. Doctor Halsey stood beside him, placing pads on his chest to monitor his heart rate, respiration and other surgical operation required areas, including his head.

After she had finished, she pressed a button on the underside of the table to begin the examination processes. The table slid into the container, and with the hiss of the lock engaging on the door, the scan began. A display to her right flickered on the side of the scanner. She rotated to look at the screen; on it was a two dimensional picture which soon became three dimensional. She placed her finger on a small button on the screen and stood back. The display turned off and a hologram projected out into the air. The doctor moved around, pen in hand, and clicked it on his head. The projection rotated to move the picture up right and zoomed on to his head. She inquisitively looked around Graham's head tapping her chin. She clicked on the base of his brain and the "walnut" appeared again, the fungus still attached. With the pen, she highlighted the area and clicked it on a small menu. The hologram flicked into a different setting; now showing blood flow. Contradicting the classification of what it was as a parasite it was not absorbing anything essential from his blood. She tapped another setting and an odd static like blur surrounded the walnut. She overlaid the two images which detailed that the pulsing of the static matched the beating of his heart.

Doctor Halsey sat down at a desk behind her. See continued to stare at the image for several minutes before leaving the room. Two Marines stood outside, along with Lieutenant Woodcock.

"What's the matter with him?" Woodcock queried.

"There is something attached to his control centre, in his Thalamus, its causing too many of his thoughts to be dismissed; but only leaving his emergency system. It controls his fight or flight. It's driving his brain to act without thinking, while only some information is being allowed through to be reflected upon. Because of this Adrenaline is released, not to the extent as someone in a fight but still higher than natural. This thing that is attached to his brain is absorbing this Adrenaline and using it to release something, I am not to sure what though. Whatever it is, this was the thing that tripped you over and also causes his eyes to glow red."

"What? How did it get there?"

"I'm not too sure; it was possibly from his birth or could be an environmental trigger. He was living in some pretty harsh conditions, before he was sent to the orphanage."

"Wait. What do you mean that thing I tripped over?" Woodcock questioned.

"It is releasing some kind of hormone or cell which is not usually present in normal conditions of space. I have seen some such things act like this in slipspace, it usually affects animals and makes them act unpredictable. I am going to run some further study on this radiation still though."

"So what are we going to do about it in the meantime?"

"Nothing, it only does this with Adrenaline and Spartans can control this. So there should be nothing wrong. However, we may want to try and drug it to make it stop, so that it prevents from making his body release the Adrenaline, which might stop the production of this thing's radiation. We just need to be careful with this one."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7 April, 15****th**** 2663/Six-Armed Robbing Suit (Search Complete)**

"Rise, my son. You are finally complete, your journey towards life coming to a close. You will be the salvation of this Covenant." said the shrivelled being. He turned away from the window to observe a large creature, purple skinned with a split mouth and long head. The beast rose, holding its head 14ft above ground, dwarfing the Prophet in his chair. The monster was an entanglement of DNA structures, a multi-being. The illegal project had aspects of creatures gathered by the Covenant. The sheer size of this experiment was from the Lou-vert's on Pertriod 7. The animals were absorbed into the Covenant because of their size and strength. However the strength of his project was not from them but from the Swevants [S-wer-vants] from Thyterit [Thy-ter-et]. Claws from Yerituri [Yer-i-turi], speed from Reventage [R-ven-targe] and his overall body shape from the current Shangheili [Shang-he-lee/Elites].

"What did I should do?" The new being asked, crumbling together nonsensical words into a sentence.

The Prophet sighed in disgrace at the poorly composed sentence. "Do not freight, your voice deficiencies will fix themselves soon. You are my son, the Prophet of Salvation's Assassin. You will become the greatest warrior in history, far better than those pathetic Arbiters." The majestic being stated.

"As I wish, you shall do... I is sorry." He trembled, kneeling before the Prophet, at his almost heretical sentences.

"Never mind, but apart from your vocal patterns you are fully complete, you must gain your honour if you are to become a true Covenant loyalist. You must prove your worth."

The Assassin merely dipped his head in agreement.

"Good! You shall go straight into battle and reacquire _Hell's End_, a mining planet which has been overrun by Human foot soldiers. You will leave at once and destroy any resistance you see, or who see _you_; Human and Covenant alike! No one must know of your existence, or it will bring shame upon your race of pitiful Shangheili." The noble Prophet ordered.

In reluctance to speak, the Assassin just simply bowed his head again. The massive creature rose to his feet and walked across to the pressurised doors.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8 April, 21****st**** 2663/Roll Call (First Timer)**

He hung upside down from the bulkhead, suspended in the air by an entanglement of his webs, between two massive cylinders. The opaque objects concealed his large body as he hung silently twenty foot above the floor, curled up into a ball.

The steady ship had slowed down for docking; he could feel the tiny vibrations from his enhanced Ventrex Cortex in his brain. It allowed him to notice things about his environment that others would usually dismiss. However, he did not need to have that as the ship bashed into the side of a docking ring, which was unusual, considering the extreme skills needed to pilot a Covenant Destroyer.

The ship shuddered to a halt as he began to lower himself via his personal web to observe even more of his surroundings. He may need to know where everything is when the boarding parties come on the ship to check for any stowaways, such as himself. As he lowered, he could feel that there was not much cover, a pillar here a there for structural support. He opened his eyes, the outer layer only. They slide sideways revealing a Kig-Yar stood about two foot in front of him. He tilted his upside-down head at the creature before he reoriented his body to stand on the floor.

Within seconds he had ripped his hands through the air, grabbed the bird-like beast's head, pulled either way and slashed his four-fingered limbs back into the darkness.

He left the Kig-Yar to float above the ground, tangled in the endless web, lifelessly gasping for air as its neck released the air its lungs once held so dear. The eyes of the creature coldly stared into his own, as the few last muscle fibres struggled to grip the two parts together. After a few brief moments of whistling atmosphere, its head broke free from its body and slid across the floor by its own pink blood.

Satisfied with the creature's demise, the Assassin closed his hardened eye lids again and listened intently. The ferocious heartbeats of Jiralhanae [Ji-ril-han-ay/Brutes] were approaching his position.

He had learnt a useful talent while in his slumber, an ability to shrink his size by collapsing his bone structures over themselves. His bones were made of over-lapping high-density Calcium-Cysterleen which meant that they could compact over each other to make himself smaller. This gave him a better advantage in the smaller nine foot hallways.

He shrank and melted further along in the shadows to bring himself closer to his preoccupied prey.

A pungent smell filled the cold harsh air as he closed in on his victims. The three overhauling monsters stood feasting on the remains of a small grunt squad. He admired the Jiralhanae for their brutality against disobedience, however, that would not stop him from following his orders: neutralise anything that he comes across.

He dissolved out of the shadow and with three quick jabs from his dual energy swords, they collapsed to the ground. His two swords had punctured into four of their lungs and with a final slash had ripped it from one of the beasts backs, twirled and hacked the last one's head from its brown, hairy body. The head slid across the floor with a wet squeak. The two side bodies lingered in the air for a brief few seconds, whereas the centre corpse was hurled across the ground from the powerful force.

After a few brief moments of removing the bodies from the hallway, he moved across towards the pressurised violet door. He looked behind himself as the four parted door swished apart, nothing was following him. He turned around, and came face to face with a Shangheili. Without hesitation, he grabbed the creatures duplicate face to his and twisted. The neck bone cracked. He let go of the aliens head and it flopped to the lifeless ground.

The humming of the ship became silent and deathly.

The Assassin stripped the creature of its weapons, a Plasma Rifle and a few Plasma Grenades, and began to start making his way towards the exit of the ship. As he ran down the corridor, he came across a window on his left. He stopped to peer out of the window, only to be aggressively greeted by a sandstorm covering the ship. The wind and sand mutely whistled outside of the window. He blinked through his different visual ranges. He eventually found a better vision; a series of green smears filled the scenery outside the window. He tuned in slightly to find a better focusing range and eventually beheld an amazing sight.

Hundred thousands of Grunts awaited beneath his slumbering ship, readying themselves for a battle. The small creatures would face an oncoming slaughter, being used as a living shield for the other larger species. He was going to see if he could not win that battle before it happened.

Not for the Unggoy [Un-goy/Grunts], but for his honour. For the Great Journey.

He continued his voyage across the Covenant purple interior of the ship, skulking through the shadows to one of the seven docking rings.

As he neared his closest port, he could sense one of the boarding parties. _They are leaving the ship_? He questioned.

He continued to run along the odd shaped hallway. Coming upon the exit he slid to a halt. The docking tubes were detaching from the port-side of the ship.

_The ship was about to take off_.

He paced across to the closed door and punched it out of anger.

He had failed. His father would surely have him hung by his entrails upon the side of his building as a sign of disobedience and dishonour.

He hung his head in shame for a brief second. After he gathered his thoughts, he looked up to see a small hole in the door where he had impacted his fist upon it.

He took three steps backwards and launched his entire weight behind his jump. He propelled himself through the thin doors, and into the hurtling winds. He fell fifty feet before deciding his next move.

He adjusted his trajectory to one of the lower tubes as he extended himself to catch onto it. He continued to fall for another thirty-five feet before impacting on top of the cylindrical pipe. He broke through the top layer of the tube and landed on the inside of the duct.

He rose to his feet, searching his surroundings for anything alive, Energy Swords drawn.

Nothing.

The Assassin simply shrugged off his almighty fall and walked along the inside of the pipeline. As he did so, he observed the scratches and claw marks from various creatures: Jiralhanae, Yerituri, and Swevants.

_They must have been hard to move_, he thought.

The Swevants were very aggressive and testy creatures. He had seen one his way onto the ship take out three Jiralhanae and several Shangheili.

As he continued down the duct he could hear the voices from a couple of grunts, barking and yapping at each other.

The small bipedal animals were always very strange creatures, acting like small pets rather than warriors. On the other hand, it may have been their size that changed their perception of battle. They would still, however, throw their lives into the heart of combat if it would only amuse a Brute or Elite. The only way the Humans could stop them is by depleting all of their ammunition.

The Assassin propped himself against the wall to his right, partially in the shadows to conceal his body. The little animals hoped past him, unaware of their death looming so close.

He stepped out of the tube and moved up behind them and just merely slammed his fists into their sides, smashing both of them into themselves.

Methane leaked out of the freezing environmental suits into the warm dehydrated air. Satisfied with their deaths, the Assassin drifted off once again into the darkness preparing for his first true battle.

He will win. He had to win. If he did not then the Prophet would have him skinned alive and have his corpse paraded around _Transsentient Gift_ by his bowels.

He slipped around the corner and ran along the hallway to the lift. His feet glided silently across the hexagonal tiled floor, until he reached the doors to the lift. He stuck his claws into the crack between the rocky doors and began to pull them apart. They easily slide aside from his enhanced strength.

Something was not right, unusual vibrations. He released his grasp on the sandstone doors and turned to the window behind him.

Beyond were the Unggoy and Kig-Yar, running away from the building he stood on. Just as he realised this, the ground began to plunge towards him as the building rotated towards the land. He moved forwards so that he now stood on the glass. The ground, once so distant away now raced towards him.

He jumped and bonded himself to the, what was now, the ceiling, holding on for his life.

The building crashed to a halt shattering the glass and bending the entire circular wall into an oddly straight line. The sandstone building began to slightly crumble, leaving a very strong red mist to linger in the cooler air.

The Assassin dropped from the ceiling and assessed what had happened.

The building was too strongly built to have merely collapse under its own weight or the ships it once held onto. It must have been rigged with some kind of explosive, shattering the buildings complete foundational structure. This would explain the hasty moving of the ship he had been on and the violent crash he felt when they docked.

_But what had caused it?_

He banished the thoughts for later reflection, and focused on the task at hand.

_How to escape to his first battle_? The Assassin briefly looked around the murky room to find some means of an exit._ The doorway onto the lift was still open which could provide his way out of this room, but how would he get out of the building?_

After some consideration, he jumped into the sideways lift compartment and slammed his fist into what would have been the floor of the cubicle smashing through onto the other side. The Assassin clambered out of the makeshift door and ran "down" the building until he reached the ground floor.

Just as he was about to pry open the lift's exit hatch, he heard large amounts of automatic gun fire for ballistic shells, which meant Humans.

He grinned with pride to know that he would make his father be filled with satisfaction with his creations brutality.

He turned around to the doorway and placed his head against the two metallic slabs and listened. He closed his eyelids again and listened to the erratic heart beats of a Human.

_His first kill_, he smiled.

The anticipation was devastating every cell in his body but he continued to wait until the right opportunity arose.

On the other side of the door he could hear the heart beat moving evermore closer to him... now was his time. He opened his eyelids, leaving his protective second lids closed.

The Assassin raised his fist, clenched it and released his full fury and anger in his punch as it merged the door. The door hurtled through the air before slamming around the side of the Human on the other side, only forcing it back two foot. Without hesitation he lurched at the mysteriously floating door and threw it to the ground. He was quickly stopped as the door was thrown up into the ceiling. His armour became wedged into a notch on the ceiling which held him in place as the door fell back down to the ground beside the Human. His limp body drooped down as the creature was now revealed.

Beneath him stood a large seven foot tall Human, covered in a black suit. Its armour was very bulky and jagged, cover in peppered burns over its discoloured white. The helmet fully covered the Human's skull, a golden orange block across the front of the sphere gazed up towards the Assassin. Around its waist was three pouches and about five grenades attached to a sash looping from its right shoulder across to its left hip.

The Assassin's thoughts were interrupted by the Human lurching forwards but flipping backwards as he did, holding onto the Assassin's feet and ripping him down from the ceiling. They fell together onto the floor in a heap. The Human stood up and grabbed the Assassin's feet again and spun him off to the wall.

The Assassin rolled onto his hands and feet and crashed into the wall, still held up by his limbs. He stood and looked up to be greeted by the Human running at him with its right hand clenched into a fist. He brought his left hand up and smacked the Human's hand to his right of him into the wall.

The Assassin's time had come to an end, he must kill the Human. His first kill.

He rotated around with the flow of his deflection, rolling his body aside of the Human and slammed his elbow into the spine of the Human. The Human crippled to the floor from the blow and briefly hesitated, allowing the Assassin to finish it. He activated his energy sword and brought it down into the Humans back.

The victorious first kill was not celebrated long as three more ran around behind him firing their weapons. The majority of the bullets simply bounced off of his shields and armour, the others made it into his exposed stomach, thighs and neck.

The Assassin activated his camouflage and flipped backwards across to the side, removing him from their vision by hiding behind a fallen pillar to his right. He quickly assessed the situation at hand and reacted accordingly.

With his camo still engaged, he jumped onto the ceiling and wandered across to hold himself above the Humans. They all stood looking around, with their guns raised, scouring the room for him.

Using his webs, he lowered himself behind one of the Humans and reached for its head. Like the Jackal, he grabbed its head and twisted either way - breaking its neck. The Humans lungs released a small amount of air in a wheeze, involuntarily revealing that it had died.

The other two rotated and fired, catching him in the back of his neck. The Assassin flipped upright, activated his sword and stabbed the Human to his left with his right hand. Following through with the blow he spun around anti-clockwise, using the impaled Human as a shield against its companion. The automatic fire ceased, but the final creature did not stop, it ran at the Assassin, handgun drawn.

The Assassin dropped his cover and began to fight in hand-to-hand combat against the final living Human. The Human gasped at the sheer true size of the enemy as the Assassin intimidated the Human by restoring to his full height.

The Assassin, hunched over from the low ceiling, shoved the Human backwards into the wall and threw him aside. He activated his second sword and stumbled across to the Human now lying in front of him. _An easy target_, he thought. He shrank slightly before grabbing the Human by its head and lifting it off of the ground.

The Human fired three times with its handgun before the Assassin stabbed it, the sword punctured through its unprotected stomach and through its back.

The corpse flopped lifelessly to the blood drenched ground beside the ten foot tall Assassin. The red liquids drained from the bodies moved across the orange sandstone walls-for-floor, towards a large hole where the building's foundations were once embedded to the ground. The stone and metal had been twisted and melted out of shape, the stone surrounding the blast was covered in a thick black charred smothering of Carbon. The dust from the walls and blast had fled from them as the battle had begun, cowering out of the massive gauge in the side of the building. On the other side of the fissure was a three metre deep carving into the floor.

The Assassin quietly assessed his wounds and attended them intently with a chemical released from his abdomen during extreme blood pressure and danger. The secreted product could be transported around the body via his veins and arteries to the injury, or by external use to block against incoming infections and further damages. He had sustained four bullet wounds on his thigh, five in his midsection and two in his neck. As he treated his wounds, he considered about the Humans he had just battled.

Although they were of course Human, they did not seem to be Human. Their nature and pure essence to destroy such a large facility was almost suicide, but still they had attempt and completed in doing so. They had amazing skills at hand-to-hand combat and strength beyond any other normal Human. The armour they wore was different to the normal Marines, but still had elements of it in them. The Voice had told him during his creation, of Humans that were brilliantly smart as they were powerful. Humans so powerful, they could take on a Covenant Assault Carrier with just one squad of theirs. They were "Spartans".

He dismissed the idea and continued. He mission _must_ be completed.

The Assassin anxiously waited behind a small cliff, the two red moons floated in a sea of deep blue. The red and orange sand washed over his armour plates and speckled across its dazzling invisible colours. The odd blue plasma spark emitted from his suit in protest to the sprinkled dust on his invisible armour. Millions of years of sedimentary highlighted each other, the dark upon light, on the small cliff's face created a skin of history before him. A splash of wind and filth wafted across the cliff's tip and fluttered to the floor at the Assassin's feet. On the other side of the mound was a counter-response encampment of Human Marines, preparing for tomorrows battle. The anticipation of winning and the annihilation of the ever-so-close Humans quivered in the hot, dry air.

He stood slightly hopping from one foot to the other from the eagerness to begin his first baby steps towards his path on the Great Journey.

The Assassin testily attempted to peer once again over the night covered hill to the prey that lay before him, begging to be slaughtered.

His mandibles twitched faintly as he observed the hellish creatures wondering about in their campsite, drifting about one another as they talked. A few marines stood by a slightly larger tent holding several guns and inspecting them before placing them back into their crates. Two of the Humans stood gazing up upon the stars, whispering to themselves about the speculations of the universe and all of its inners. Their helmets were tucked neatly under their arms as they rotated to the different star constellations.

His time was approaching but he did not have the self-discipline to contain it, but still he waited. Like a trap waiting to bite hold of its prey, he burned with anticipation.

The Assassin's eyes watched intently as the Humans moved about, the two who were stargazing had walked off into one of the tents and the others faced the opposite direction.

_Now was his time_.

He lurched forwards, over the top of the cliff. Propelling his seven foot tall, hundred-sixty-five kilogram body across fifteen meters before his large feet slammed silently onto the ground. He burst into a sprint, heading towards the largest tent.

The yellow fibres of the tent were illuminated from a self-glowing orange from within. Three distinct Human figures were concealed within, only broken by their shadows leaking out into the dark abyss of the night.

The Assassin stood with his back against the side of the radiant tent, as one of the Marines move past him looking beyond, out to the foretelling battlefield. He assumed that it would be _tomorrow's_ bloodbath, but he was wrong.

The Assassin slowly walked up behind the Human, and unsheathed his metallic blade from his chest-plate's base. With it in hand, he moved closely up behind the Marine...

"Hey! George! Do'ya wanna play a game of Texas Hold 'Em?" Another Marine bellowed to his teammate.

"Nah, you go on, I just wanna look out ova those hills!" The close proximity Human replied.

"Yeah alrigh', just be careful, something might come out an' kill ya'!" The other man chuckled as he melted back into his tent, not knowing how right he was.

The Assassin used his left hand to cover up the Human's mouth as he slithered the blade through the throat of the Human and watched in glee as the creature bleed to death, gasping for air as its thick red blood bubbled out of its neck. He rotated from his feet up, away from the blood-red sand. He came to gaze upon a Human starring back at him in the eyes as he stood next to one of the tents.

The large bulky man called for help and the Assassins pupils widening for light as they became focused on his next target. Two men ran up beside the large Marine, a look of shock planted upon their faces.

The Assassin ran forward and jumped into a 360 clockwise spin, bringing his left-handed Energy Sword up and into the stomach of the massive Human, lifting him into the air. He ripped his sword free and spun backwards in an anti-clockwise direction, as he unsheathed his Plasma Spear. With his Energy Sword in-hand he sliced the Marine to the right of the one he had just killed. He activated his Plasma Spear on the twist and threw it into the third and impaled it into the tent behind.

He wrenched his Spear free and deactivated, as he looked about in glee at the mangled and distorted human bodies that surrounded him.

Bullets began to ping off of his armour as three more Marines ran out of a larger tent, Human Assault Rifles blazing as they charged at their enemy. He activated his camouflage and twirled into the tent behind him, knocking over the support poles that held it erect.

He rolled out from under the other side of the tent and walked around, flanking the Humans, whom were still firing at the tent. He walked across to behind the nearest Marine and gagged it, just before he twisted its head and splintered its spinal cord.

The two Marines next to him stopped firing and looked at their limp friend's head, its jaw drooping creepily low.

Still holding onto the Marines head, he used the body as a club and smashed the next Marine out of the way, launching both bodies ten feet away. His eyes met with the remaining Human and his cold dead eyes flickered with the flames from the burning tent, which caused the Human to fall over unconscious. He upholstered his Energy Sword and stabbed into the Marines chest, the armour and skin around the wound boiled and sizzled from the torturing heat. After a few seconds to make sure the Human was fully dead, he strolled off to silently slay the remaining me in the other tents to complete his mission.

He had won, and proved himself honourable to his... _Father_.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9 1513 hours, January, 26****th**** 2655/Military Calendar/Ghosts of Reach (Silent Valley)**

Over the past thirteen months they group had learnt a lot about each other: their habits, favourite foods, opinions on different matters. They had became like the family that each-and-everyone of the Spartan's craved for since the loss of their own.

One of the most shocking discovers, was that April and Lewis were actually brother and sister, separated just after birth as their planet was glassed.

Lewis was sent to a contrasted planet, Gottesman of the URSA Major_ALPHA system. Terichi, where Alys had come from was filled with rich, posh families. However the continent where Lewis was found, Detriod, was a slum, with markets, crime, violence and scraps for food. He had been arrested and placed inside the orphanage because of his lack of discipline... and the fact he stole seven-hundred credits worth of traded goods. A few months later in the orphanage, ONI had found and conscripted him into the SPARTAN-VII Project.

By a stroke of luck, Alys was moved to Detroid for national schooling and was even moved into the same orphanage. She had been sent there by her parents as, being ambassadors for the continent of Terichi and had to travel to other planets and help to expand the UNSC empire. She had been left behind by her parents because of the amount of time that would be wasted rather than being educated further. She was extremely smart for any child of her age, having an IQ closer to that of histories greatest minds, only at the age of 6.

Meanwhile April had been shipped to District 9 of Adraulus, in the Alpha Coronae Borealis star system. She was immediately placed into an orphanage after she was transferred to the planet only two days before and was almost simultaneously conscripted into the SPARTAN-VII programme.

Michael had the worst background, as his family was slaughtered before his eyes as he crouched in fear behind a door in his house. His family members were stripped limb-from-limb by Brutes that were tearing apart the planets villages and small towns, as the rest of the planet and major cities were glassed. Michael was found a few days later, after the Covenant had left, still in his house with the remnants of his family and the Brutes. He had never told them how he had done it but he had murdered each Brute in their own little way.

These strange backgrounds and personalities helped them instantly bond. So when Lieutenant Woodcock, who they had started to now respect from both admiralty and fear, had ordered them into the teams they wished they knew simultaneously who they were going to be with.

The students had been split into teams. Graham's team, Blue Team, consisted of April, Alys, Lewis and Michael. A week ago the teams had been assigned different tasks; Blue Team's, Graham and his "family", was to retrieve a key for their food. The only thing to stop them was a thirty-five man squad of ODSTs (Orbital Drop Shock Troopers) and twelve dogs which all combined to make up Gamma Company, along a huge pole with a flag on it, which is where the key is fastened to. This was the final day to which they had time to complete the task, and over the six day period of time, Lewis had taken: weapons, equipment, rations, lighters for fire and even had Alys make some compounds to put in the dogs meals to make them ill for three days. Which gave them until tonight to finish.

A distant echo reverberated inside his head. It was calling his name, repeating over-and-over again, a warm tapping then started on his leg as he hung upside down, with his legs slung over the beam.

"Graham. Graham, she says there's a car moving across from the West. Come on get up."

Graham cracked out of his stationary state and lowered his arms that were crossed across his chest. He reached up and pulled himself up onto the branch, beside him was Michael, leaning up against the tree.

Above him was Lewis, "Hey, I know I'm pretty, but there's no reason to stare." He whispered, a smile dancing across his face as he descended to their branch.

He looked around to observe his surroundings.

The three of them sat on the branch of a large tree, about seventeen feet off of the ground; the tree was perfect because of its height and the amount of leaves that covered it. It allowed for good visibility out, but worse looking in. Below the tree was bushy undergrowth enclosed by thick, green slime-coated water. The swampy water glistened in speckled patchy light. Bugs and insects floated around in the light like frozen rain in space. The heavy, wet air hung around the three boys, giving a green hue to everything over a five metre range. Graham looked up to the sky and a tiger-skin of daylight and darkness dabbled around, showing the sun was now at its highest point.

"Pass me the mirror," Graham asked, as Michael reached into his cloth for clothing and pulled out a slither of glass, no bigger than his hand.

Graham took the mirror and looked east to find a length of vines drooping down the side of a massive cliff that stretched off from North to South. After he found it, he angled the mirror in his hand to reflect the sunlight up to the top of the vines. He turned the mirror slightly, back again and off again, causing the mirror to flash in a certain order for bursts and blazes, like Morse code. After a few brief moments several flashes replied to his.

April sat upon the cliff with the vines to show her position to the rest of the team, she held a SRS99D-S2 AM Sniper Rifle with an Oracle A337 scope with 20x zoom that Lewis had stolen over the week.

The flashing light signalled for a truck possibly carrying weapons or troops, heading North-East, towards a recon positioning. The plan; get there first and set a trap.

"Okay, they've got a truck on its way, so we need to give them a nice, warm welcome." Graham ordered, pointing towards the encampment.

Michael and Lewis nodded in anticipation. Now the real games would begin.

The three boys leapt from tree to tree, stopping every-so-often as patrols of two Marines walked around beneath them on the murky ground.

The birds sang delightfully in harmony to the whistling of the trees in the cool wind. The warm moist air was only broken by the ghastly rays of light beaming down from the green heaven above. A putrid stench clogged the atmosphere from rooting plants and animals.

When they finally arrived at the "encampment", which turned out to be just a small tent with a mounted-turret poking out of the front, they moved across to the tree just above it.

_Now it's the tricky part_, Graham thought.

They lined themselves up in order across the branch, Graham, Michael and then Lewis, and linked hands. Graham and Lewis slid backwards until they were up side down.

Graham looked down at the men as they fiddled with their ammunition and an MP3 player. The men were too occupied with listening to rock music to realise the rustling leaves of the branch. He looked back up to Michael as the hard bit started.

Michael now slid around the tree backwards as well and then pushed upwards. His face contorted with the huge effort as he lifted Lewis and Graham off the branch. The two boys unhooked their legs from the branch as Michael lowered them. Michael stretched his arms down towards the men as Lewis and Graham prepared themselves. The two boys spun around back-to-back and put their feet together. They linked the feet closest to the men and pushed off with the others and kicked the two men's heads together.

A few birds squawked in approval, as the two bodies flopped to the ground, blood on their noses. The rock music continued in the background as Graham and Lewis attempted to pick the turret off its tripod. The boys struggled to lift the gun until Michael came across and lifted the gun away from them and chuckled to himself.

Alys ran around some trees with two Assault Rifles in her hands and one more on a strap on her back. She handed two of the rifles to Lewis and Graham, and they smiled in appreciation, the third she took off her back and inspected it before cocking the rifle's barrel and raising the sight to her eye. She lowered the weapon and looked at Graham, before courtesy nodding her head with a smile hidden behind a think layer of green and brown mud.

Graham put his finger in the air and twirled it in a circle: come to me. The two boys and Alys walked across to him inside the tent.

He walked across to one of the radios and clicked it on. Nothing, nobody knew anything of what had just happened. Good. He passed Alys the mirror and she walked outside to signal April about the specific radio bandwidth. Lewis had taken one of the walkie-talkies to listen in on what they were doing; now they were going to use their enemy's technology behind their backs to communicate. _How ironic_, Graham thought as he placed his Assault Rifle on the table beside the radio.

He turned the dials to a specific radio bandwidth and whistled into the microphone in a series of tunes, like a bird. After a few heart beats, a reply was sung: April was good. He flicked the microphone on and turned to the group of three that sat before him.

"Okay Spartans that was the easy bit... Now we've got a truck delivering supplies around the place, this was the last one. So I think that it would be good if we gave them a nice welcome and a rest." Graham said, with a smile across his face. "I want Lewis and Alys in the trees ready on my command. Michael you'll be baiting the trap and being the backup. April, your our backup's backup."

"I wont let you have all of the fun." She said playfully, but in a harsh, cold tone that everyone had become accustom to hearing in her voice when she was in her hunt zone.

"Let's get this show on the road then." Graham finished.

The group dispersed off to their different locations and hunkered down for the wait. Graham thought about how the respect that him and Lieutenant Woodcock now had, had also taught him a lot about how he should be and how he should act. Like the patience to wait for an hour to pass without doing anything to keep him occupied, but to continue to stay focused.

The truck pulled up several metres away from the encampment and one of the men got out of the cockpit of the truck. He was dressed in an adapted ODST outfit; a brown leather-like skin suit, with green camouflaged armour pads on his shoulders, knees down to ankles, back-plate, chest-plate and the standard ODST helmet to make the suit airtight. The man walked around the side of the vehicle and into the encampment but did not emerge. Michael had done his job; now it was time for them to do theirs. One man, dressed the same uniform, clambered out of the vehicle and started collecting the supplies from the rear of the vehicle. Two more men jumped out of the back of the truck and talked to the commander. After the silent voice inside their helmets had finished their conversation, the two men walked towards the encampment to find their missing comrade.

Graham looked up at Lewis and Alys and with his index finger and middle finger out, in the shape of a childish gun, he motioned for them to engage. The two kids dropped from the trees, Lewis brought his hands down on the man's neck and Alys kicked the second adult's head into the ground. Both of the ODSTs lay with their unconscious heads embedded into the floor. _Now its my turn_, Graham thought as Alys and Lewis ran into the base. The man dropped the supplies he was carrying when he found his unconscious squad mates on the floor, and drew his gun.

Graham grasped onto a vine and slithered upside down, behind the man. The ODST turned and let out a little whelp as the distorted, mud-covered scarred face of Graham yelled in his face. Graham spun around and leapt onto the man and began to smack the helmet from side to side, yelling and growling as he did. The Adrenaline in his blood spiked, he loved it; living on edge, nothing to hold you back. Yet he controlled it and fought back against his uncontainable urge for more.

He was about to deliver the final blow to the helmet and smash the glass inwards, but was interrupted by him being thrown off. He rolled across the floor and back onto his hands and feet. He growled in both anger and pain at the man.

A yell from behind stopped him, and as he turned, another ODST, hidden before, ran out with a large log in his gauntleted hands, anger boiling in his revealed face. Just as he was about to bring it down past his head, two cracks echoed in the silent valley. A small dent now appeared in the man's forehead and a pellet fell out as he collapsed to the ground. The other ODST fell to the ground holding his right side with his left hand. His convex visor glinted in a green hue with pain and suffering. Graham stood in shock for a brief second, until he remembered that it was an enemy and a threat, which was disobedience of a superior command not to neutralise those threats. He snorted at the fallen men noticing how they had fallen... he looked up at April.

After few flashes of light to say that he now owed her a favour, he cracked a smile, before running after the others.

He turned the corner into the encampment and found the ODST without a helmet, pinned on the floor with Michael stood holding the turret to the man's forehead.

"We're taking you ride is that okay?" Graham asked rhetorically.

"Why don't you piss off you little runt," The man replied.

"Well, I am very sorry but tough!" He said with sarcasm smouldering in his voice, he shot a look at Michael who took a shot at the man. The body slumped down further and lay still. Although every gun that was on the island only shot pellets, _it still really hurt_, Graham reflected.

"Come on then, let's get moving." He said. He walked across to the radio and clicked it on, "April we're coming along in the truck, get prepared to drop."

The four children walked across the lifeless bodies and clambered into the truck. It was a make-shift vehicle constructed from a troop carrying M842 Warthog Transport and a large mass of cloth thrown over it and bolted onto the chassis. Alys climbed into the driver's seat and buckled herself in, as Michael sat in the passenger's. Graham and Lewis jumped into the back compartment and threw a few of the crates out to make more room. Alys briefly glanced over the wheel, pedals, gears and other buttons before slamming down the accelerator and tearing off into the jungle.

Static washed over the radio and then a voice broke through, "April we're coming along in the truck, get prepared to drop."

April shuffled slightly and removed the grass and mud she had smothered into her dark black hair and straightened it out.

"About damn time." She muttered to herself as she removed a twig from behind her ear.

She propped herself up against a moss covered tree, which was perched on the very edge of the cliff, and looked down the Oracle scope. A path way of fluttering birds indicated her squad's location.

Up on the cliff the wind whistled in a soothing rhythm with the birds and other animals howling back in tune. The deep green valley beneath her was filled with varying types and sizes of trees, all as green as her hazel eyes.

A few scratches on her face and arms began to sting again as the mud sparked her nerves. She had been through a few rough scenarios that had caused the cuts, but she always had her team right beside her along the way. She could ruthlessly injure, or even kill, a Marine but she loved her friends more than she could anything else in the galaxy, even if they were her real family. She tore a part of her shirt off and poured a bit of water on it from some leaves and began to clean her scuffs.

The Sun had moved down now behind the opposite of the canyon. It sat atop the horizon and a mist had set over the basin from the time taken for the truck to get to the squad, and from them to her. The haze was beginning to glow in an orange hue, which made a full blend of rainbow like colours. The valley and mist turned from green and yellow up to the gold of the blazing sun on the other side of the gorge, to a dark blue and then purple above her head. The sky was fortunate enough not to be obscured by any clouds, and only a few large birds that flew above her floating about among the planets in the sky.

_I love the sunsets here_, April meditated.

She looked back down to the chasm floor and the birds were a lot closer now with dust fluttering up among them. She threw the sniper away and grabbed the vine hanging over the edge. She wrapped it between her legs and free-fell for ten seconds before beginning to tighten her legs against it. Nothing happened, apart from a now shirring pain now burning through her legs. The floor was approaching fast; she would have to trust her team mates to think ahead. She tightened her legs and flipped up and locked her hands onto the vine. The resultant sudden stop caused the vine to snap and throw her to the side like a leaf. The Adrenaline pumped through her body and she opened her eyes. She was hurtling through the canopy of the jungle with the branches scratching every inch of her body. Below her was the truck. She tucked and rolled but stumbled as she did so along the floor of the Warthog. She trip over once until she became embedded in the front of the truck.

"Hi... Um, you look nice... but could you umm, get off of me now please?" April opened her eyes. In front of her face was Graham's about four inches away. She blinked once and then slipped around the side and exhaled. Her bright face had become reddened with embarrassment as she flicked back her hair over her head and moved a few strays out of her eyes.

"Since when, do you, give compliments?" April asked, a joke toying around in her now playful voice.

"I have my days." He chuckled.

"So where to now?"

"... To the flag. Then off to go and rub it in everyone faces when we win!" Graham roared, as the squad cheered in triumph.

_We haven't won yet_, April pondered,_ but_ _I guess that a little bit of bragging after isn't too bad_.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10 2054 hours, January, 26****th**** 2658/Military Calendar/Flip and Sizzle (Something Special)**

"Michael, drop the rock on the pedal. Alys, get ready with the handbrake. April, Lewis get in the back. Okay, let's move out!" Graham ordered, a smile cracking through the mud on his face.

The team finished their tasks and took up positions in the cargo-hold in the back, except Alys who took the wheel. She pulled the handbrake off, with some help from Michael, and the Warthog lurched forwards into the night.

The sky had become a sheet of blue that had been wrapped over the sky. Hundreds of dots scattered the sky like fireflies in the darkness. Irishia, the massive gas planet that Zenith Prime orbited hung high in the air, bragging its immense size. The trees had settled down for the night and the animals had become silent, besides a distant few. A few birds flew past the car in a rush to find a late nesting place to settle for the night and a couple of ground animals scattered from the vehicle. Two massive blue and orange moons hung high in the sky, illuminating the surrounds in an outline of mixed colours between the two. The ground beneath the Warthog was solid, considering the boggy slime that bordered the road.

"Wow, look at those meteorites!" Lewis exclaimed pointing his small hand out of the back at the sky.

Stretched streaks of white, blue and yellow blazed through the night sky. Some seemed to explode but still continued to fall.

"Yeah! Wait; there wasn't any talk on the radios about meteors? Alys what's going on?" Michael bellowed over the top of the roaring engine.

Alys did not hesitate in looking at the metrological anomaly; she pressed a button to lock the steering and jumped into the back. She moved across to the back and looked up. Her face became etched with questions that she did not ask, until she gasped and looked at them.

"Its not a meteor shower, they're more ODSTs!" Her face remained still, but a tone of worry shook the minds of the eight year olds.

"What does it change?" Lewis asked, the worry now seeping through into his mind, but a look of shock was obviously present. "I mean, there has got to be at least about 40 pods dropping there! I'm good enough to handle 30 on my own, but I'm not good enough to take out 70!"

"It changes nothing. 30 or 300, it's irrelevant. We are Spartans, and we _never_ back down from a fight." Graham replied, over-confidence burning in his voice.

The Warthog continued to thunder down the mud cobbled road, as the pods began to be illuminated from spotlights at the base in the distance. The beams reaching out like fingers to guide them to the ground, however, a few still spun out at angles, even crashing into others, and falling to an inevitable death.

Alys clambered back into the driver's seat, disengaged to locking system and directed the Warthog over the tip of a hill. As she applied the brakes and they began to slide around until finally stopping. At the top of the mound the base was visible, the fingered lights contacting from the heavens touching onto the ground below. The ODST pods rumbled over head, causing the five children to crouch to the ground, as the flames ignited the air around them.

Deafening sonic booms cracked the atmosphere into submission and the pods descended to the ground beside the military camp. Ionised trails of gas created mystical auroras of light that danced in the moonlight to the symbol clashes of the booms and collisions of the pods. A few speckles of glistening light gave an illusion of ever more stars. After two minutes of awe-inspiring ballet lights, the children rose from the ground and watched as the landing sites began to become enflamed.

Alys laughed, "Well that's useful, they set the forest on fire with those pods!"

"Umm, how is that good?" April asked, gazing into the blistering fires that erupted like volcanoes.

Graham tilted his head up slightly, from looking down at the ground in contemplation, "... Because now they have two things to worry about; the fire and us! Who said luck doesn't count. Okay, now let's finish off what we began. Alys, get the truck ready. Lewis, help Michael unpack the smaller weapons and ammo. April, we have a sledge to build."

The four candidates saluted and ran off to their tasks. Graham walked off towards the closest tree, when April ran up beside him and began to climb the tree with her momentum. He came to stop beneath a branch as she began to kick it off. The wood splintered causing Graham to hold his arm above his head. Eventually, it began snap off and Graham caught it on its way down, but knocking him over as well.

Alys used the Warthogs dashboard touch screen to set the destination for the camp and set it to launch remotely. A small handheld device sprung out of the dashboard and she took if off, inspected it and slotted it into her clothes. She jumped out of the Warthog and walked around the back to help Michael and Lewis with unloading the weapons. Most of the ammunition had been dropped off at previous destinations before it had arrived at theirs. With two branches in April's arms and two also in Graham's, they spread the 4 planks out before them. The two children began to weave ropes from the truck in and out between each one to hold it together as one body of wood. They fastened the lines tightly and looked up at the truck.

Lewis stood with his arm out against the bonnet of the Warthog, Michael had his arms folded and Alys sat with her legs tucked up against her chest with her head on her knees while her arms were resting around them. The five kids looked at one another and nodded, smiles firmly imprinted on their faces.

They all hopped onto the makeshift raft and held on.

"How long do we have till the truck sets off?" Graham asked, sat one in from the back of the sledge.

Alys answered in front of him, "I've set a five minute timer once I press the button. But we will still have to time it just right.

"Okay, arm it when we get half way down the hill. Michael, let's get going."

Michael stood behind Graham and placed his hands on his back. Michael dug his feet into the ground and began to push. The sludge began to slip away from beneath them and they started sliding down the hill. Michael jumped on the back and they all fell as one down the steep slope. Bushes scratched at Lewis face, at the front, and along the rest of everyone's arms. Despite the pain, they kept quiet and continued their voyage.

After a few minutes Alys pulled out the node and pressed the button and it began to blink in a bloody red, "Its set!"

Time continued to pass as they weaved their way around trees and dense bushes, until they stopped.

"How long now?" Lewis asked.

"Two minutes till it launches," Alys replied.

"I guess its time for me to get my groove on." Lewis chuckled, as he started to drift off into the darkness.

"Everyone up," Graham whispered, pointing into the trees.

A thick smog had began to creep its way down from the furthest reaches of the canyon into the hallows of the forest and shouts had began to fill the awkward silences. _Good, the fires are doing their job_, Graham thought. He climbed up the tree and looked around; they were on the East side of the camp, closest to the fires._ That will complicate things_, he continued.

They all clambered onto one tree, which Lewis had picked out a week ago and had been using to get into and out of the base each time. Now all of them had too. Michael stood, as far as he could, to the tip of the branch and took up a strengthening stance. Behind Michael was the complex, with a barb wired fence surrounding it. Lewis wrapped a vine around his right hand and ran the length of the branch, then launched up, with the aid of Michael, into the air and cleanly over the wires. He slammed his hand with the vine against a wooden pylon. He twisted around the pole as he descended. Finally, he came to a halt, gripped the vine in both hands and leaned backwards to tighten it around the pylon.

At the other end of the vine tied to the tree, the others, one by one, began to grind their way down into the camp.

Graham still had not overcome his fear of heights, but he dealt with it and just jumped with some rope linked over the top of the vine. The others had already got inside the facility and were waiting by a wooden building beside the pylon. The few brief seconds were over momentarily and he fell to the ground. He stayed crouched and looked across at his team. He held up both his hands with two fingers held up on one, and five on the other;_ which symbolised two for April and five for Lewis. _He then tapped his chest and then moved his hand open and closed for talking like a shadow puppet; _on his command_. With two fingers he directed twice at the flag in the centre of the compound; _to retrieve the flag with the key to their food_.

He then held up both his hands again now with four on one and three on the other; _Michael and Alys_. He slammed one fist into the other; _set up some detonations_. With two fingers again he notified twice towards the barracks; _on the barracks_.

The groups dispersed and disappeared, followed by Graham. He walked up to the guttering and began to ascend it. Upon reaching the top, he gazed back over across to the fires.

Huge columns of blackened smoke and ash blotted out the blue moon, Holus; its blue radiance illuminating the edges of the smog. The once blue sky had become scorn by the darkness that now suffocated it to death. The shouting of the ODST's had become more clear and coherent as they began to return to the complex. However, they had not yet realised they had been invaded.

Graham looked across to the hill they had advanced from, just in time to witness the Warthog scorch down the last one-hundred metres of road and plough through the front gates and become embedded in one of the wooden buildings. Wood and metal screeched and splintered into a thick dust that exploded out from the front of the base. He looked across at the barracks, beneath it Michael and Alys were tying the last of the grenades from the Warthog onto the one metre stilts of the structure. Across the other side of the compound April and Lewis stood, waiting for the order to charge up the centre pole.

An alarm began to wail as it screeched in pain from the Warthog. Alys and Michael had finished and were running from the building.

_Three, two, one_, Graham counted, as the building exploded and collapsed under its own weight. He turned and nodded towards the siblings.

With Lewis on her back, April sprinted to the post and began to climb the first few metres. Lewis then launched off her back and ran up the mast, using his hands to pull him towards it as his feet pushed him up. When he reached the top he jumped up and grabbed hold of the flag. It began to descend as his weight loosened the knot at the top and he lowered, with the help of April.

Graham jumped off of the roof and rolled across the floor. His roll had forced him into the fence so he pushed away and regrouped with his teammates by the gate. They ran out together and continued to run away from the complex until they ran out of breath over eight-hundred metres away. The five students collapsed on the floor and Graham took the flag. He held it in victory above his head, and fell forwards onto the floor from Lewis pushing him from behind.

They laid on the floor and watched in glee at the mayhem and destruction they had caused; as the smoke rose into the night sky and the shouts and squawks complimented in harmony of both ODST's and the birds.

Graham unwrapped the flag. Inside was a remote, much like the one Alys had, so he pressed the button.

The sirens stopped and a massive beam of light blasted up into the sky. After a few brief heartbeats, the enormous Pelican transport carriers emerged from the complex and moved across to the group of Spartans.

A divine and holy voice bellowed over the loud speakers, "Congratulations Spartans! You have won."


	11. Chapter 11

**Early to Bed, Early to Die)**

A dull, muted hum rested nicely in Michael mind as he rotated his head in his slumber. A cold wind caressed his newly exposed left check and his eyes slowly opened with great reluctance. Michael's dreary eyes floated about the room, blurred by the water in his eyes. He lifted his heavy arms and rubbed a synthetic hand over his eyes. He pulled his hand away and forced his eyes to focus on the weighty limb. A black material covered his hands. His eye lids closed under the pressure. His mind became overpowered by the continual droning sound and his head slumped against a beam to his right.

Another's cold artificial hand slipped around his chin and turned his head. A finger jabbed at his eye and opened his eye lids for him. Another wave of darkness shattered his mind and a stabbing of bees inside his muscles burned him to consciousness. The sudden shock jolted him awake. He opened his eyes with alertness. He senses blasted awake. Pain was sheering throughout every inch of his body, cold air lashing at his watering eyes, clogged fuel like air hung rebelliously in his nose, blood and flesh bubbling in his mouth, the gentle hum became a dangerously aggressive growl of engines. His eyes rapidly flashed around the room, Alys knelt with a needle jettison from his left leg. He rubbed his eyes to adjust to the environment which revealed four squads cramped into the cargo hold of a Pelican drop ship.

"It is okay just relax; the Adrenaline shot was to help you get awake." Alys stated, removing the needle from his thigh and placing it back into a kit that sat open beside her.

The entirety of four specially adapted troop Pelicans were filled with the intense Adrenaline rush of a new missi\on. The air was stale with an overflow of sweat and heat. Only a selection of squads was chosen for this night operation and all of the Spartans were eager to start the mission and get to the objective first. Nobody even knew what the mission was going to be but they all wanted it more than the next person. The twenty people in each of the Pelicans meant that the four teams would jump from each Pelican to the ground below, and that was all he could gather by being in the aircraft.

Michael turned back to Alys as she hefted herself up and clunked an ODST helmet onto her head.

"What are we're gonna have to do?" Michael bellowed over the roar of the engines.

Alys looked him in the eyes with a look of tension and excitement in hers, as she stated, "I have a suspicious feeling that perhaps we are going to be jumping from the back!"

Michael laughed at her sarcastic comment and twisted his cramped body to glance out of the window on the side of the Pelican. Outside, the darkness of the night had tightened its grasp over the sky and the scenery of the traditional forest had been consumed by the tall skyscrapers and buried beneath houses. The city below had fallen into a deep slumber by the turn of the planet. The massive buildings beneath the craft perked up, reaching up to them in a nightly yawn. The crisp, cold air outside caused a mass of condensation on the inside of the glass, as Michael moved his head closer to the window to get a better view of the scenery.

Graham squeezed across to Michael and tapped him on the shoulder. "Michael, what can you see? I think we might have to land on a specific site!"

"This is unlike anything we've done before! I don't recognise any of it! But there's a massive 'J' on the side of a building to the East. That would be a good RVP position!"

"Okay, spread the word around to everyone! We'll need all of the help we can get for a team mission."

Graham then stumbled back off into the crowd of Spartans as he told everyone about the rendezvous point, as did Michael. He rotated back to Alys and told her before moving off to tell everyone else.

After three minutes, the four squads filling the craft knew about the position to rendezvous. Lieutenant Woodcock emerged from the cockpit and shouted so loud, it made Michael sound like a whine.

"Okay Spartans, today is your special day! Halsey has just updated these holo-projector units, so now they inflict lifelike damage! So be on your best behaviour! You are all in the standard ODST armour, so you have got some protection, but do not expect to be invincible! Each craft has been designated as a different group to respond to a different objective but you will also be competing against the other squads in your teams! So all four of your teams are competing against the other squads to finishing the objectives, but also against yourselves to finish your own objective! Am I understood?"

Everyone answered with an encouraging grunt of approval and a colossal rise of hands into the air. Michael moved back across to the window for one last look at the cityscape from above, just in case he has missed anything.

"Your mission objectives will appear on your heads-up-display on the fly so pay attention to what you have got to do, okay!" Woodcock added, punching some buttons on the display beside him. Panels across the sides of the craft opened up to reveal parachutes inside. The black backpacks concluded their entry method.

Michael moved across, clicked his helmet on and picked up his designated parachute, with his number on, and began to strap himself in as he turned to see Alys peering over the edge of the open door.

"This seems like a bit of a hot-drop, we have never done a city jump before!" Alys yelled back to the Lieutenant. Nikita walked up behind her and stuck his foot into her back.

"Oh, just jump you stupid bitch!" He shouted. She reached for the side of the craft but fell short. Nikita kicked. She flipped forwards out of the craft.

Michael stormed across to the laughing Spartan and griped onto his parachute.

"She didn't have a parachute, you twat!" Michael growled as he ripped the pack off of Nikita's body with his foot firmly planted onto the base of his spine. Michael launched himself out the back of the craft and time seemed to freeze.

He could see everything, every detail. Car lights flickered below in the streets, cracks in the buildings, the sun's light refracting off of the trails of clouds left behind by distance aircraft. A blue haze had begun to flatten the last lingering specks of sunlight beyond the horizon. Small parks of green sat defiantly in different districts, with abandoned play sets. Street lights awoke for their morning shift and the city adverts became filled with abundant life.

Michael gazed down to find Alys, unsuccessfully.

After frantically searching the hurling skies he caught a glimpse of her. He angled himself towards her and folded his arms into his body. He gained a sudden burst of speed, throwing him into a faster trajectory to Alys as she opened her arms outwards to increase her air resistance.

His speed continued to increase until he threw his arms forward and caught hold of her waist. His momentum threw them around like leaves in a tornado. Michael opened Nikita's parachute and they both slowed down significantly, but still too fast. Michael took Nikita's parachute and strapped it onto Alys and threw her up. She seemed to stop, as if frozen in ice as he unrelentingly plunged down to the surface. He grabbed his parachute's handle and pulled.

It snapped off.

Almost immediately, he brought his hands down over his back and torn the backpack over his head. The parachute extended upwards and rustled in the air for several heartbeats until finally exploding out in a great darkness that expanded across the sky, hiding the faint dot that was now Alys.

Michael looked down and threw himself to the side, narrowly missing a lamppost. He looked up at the parachute then back down at the floor. The massive material snagged onto the lamppost, but it was too low. Michael collided straight on top of a car and was thrown aside like a doll from an ungrateful child. His head rammed into the back of a bench as his knees cracked on the pavement. An explosion of pain ricocheted through his body and he blanked out into unconsciousness.

Alys managed to glide down to the floor and roll off the momentum. She stood up and looked around, huge buildings extending above her. _But where is Michael_, she contemplated as she began to walk around the side of a small building. Michael's parachute extended from behind a car up to a street light. As Alys walked past the vehicle, she discovered Michael's limb body spread across the bench and pavement.

After four minutes, Michael throbbing headache subsided and allowed him to again regain consciousness. He lifted himself up with his arms and slipped over to sit on the bench to stare at the van in front of him, with Alys stood beside it. _Damn it dat hurt, why do I always get all the pain_? Michael thought to himself as he hefted his body off the seat. However, his legs disagreed and buckled, crippling him from a sheering pain from his knees. Michael dropped to the floor and struggled back up onto the bench. As he turned to sit again, he gazed up through his helmet to meet another's held low over him. The pain overcame him and again he slipped unconscious.

After twenty minutes the sky had been completely consumed by darkness, the faintest of stars defiantly burning through the atmosphere. The night's air was cold as it whispered silently through the rows of houses and buildings. Rushing water could be heard by the faintest sounds from the pipes underground and a train's whistle echoed off the office blocks.

As Michael finally came back, he leaned upwards to be greeted by even more pain from his stomach. He flinched but continued to sit up straight as the taste of blood gargled in his throat. A hand came down on his shoulder. Instinctively, he gripped it.

"You really need to start paying attention to what you do more often." Alys soothing voice whispered.

"Damn. This's gettin' better by the minute. Can I walk?" Michael asked looking down at his shattered armour knee plates.

"Well, your knees are slightly damaged, so it will be painful but you still can, yes." She answered, moving around to help him up.

When he finally reached his full height another wave of pain erupted through his body and he hunched over slightly, Alys moved in front of him to stop him from falling and he placed his hands on her shoulders to regain his balance. As she moved around to his side, he slipped his right arm over her shoulders and they set off in the direction of the skyscraper to the East.

They hobbled along side of each other until they reached a café at the corner of the road. Alys aided Michael in sitting down before she stood before him and gave her verdict.

"Look, there must be a medical kiosk somewhere; I will be back as soon as I can. Please, try not to break anything else." She said as she began to move backwards and ran off out of the doors.

_Great, now we stuffed, I hope the others landed better than I did_, Michael thought as he shifted his massive body into a more comfortable position on the seats. After he made himself more comfortable, Michael began to inspect his legs. He peeled back some of the layers over his knee, which revealed a lot more blood than he expected. The rich crimson emerged from his knee in an entrancing rhythm.

As Michael began to tend to his wound with a napkin for the table a massive sonic boom exploded from the sky and a Type 65 Troop Dispatching Carrier (Apparition) collided beyond some industrial warehouses to the North. Trails of blue and green lingering furiously to the air behind the craft as it hurtled to the ground. An unnaturally large explosion and shockwave rippled across the ground beneath him. Glasses and tins fell on the floor creating a cacophony of clangs, clashes and cracks. The ripple also sent Michael into the table and caused him even more pain. He clenched his knees and stomach with pain as he regained his balance. As he looked up to search for Alys he continued to grasp his joint and belly, his face cringing with pain and agony.

"Alys, where are you?" Michael screamed as loud as he could, "Alys!"

"Serra-444," a voice emitted from his headset in his helmet, "we have a new objective for you. We could not contact Serra-458. Your objective has now changed: locate her and proceed to the site of the crashed Dropship. Contact us only once you have finished your directives."

"Roger, Command." Michael stated as he gritted his teeth and looked up at the streaks of smoke across the sky.

Michael struggles to his feet, stumbling as he did, and walked out of the building after Alys and across the street in the direction she had gone. The blood from his leg poured down and covered the floor behind him as he staggered down the roads. As he wobbled uneasily with his right hand pressed up against the wall of a large house. The glass signs attached to the buildings were either cracked or completely shattered, making it incredibly harder to navigate to her location. He glanced across at a side alleyway and looked around the right hand corner at the end of the street. He looked back down the alley. Alys was held captive, Nikita holding a gun to her head. She stood without her helmet on, and a look of shock and anger contoured on her face.

Michael staggered towards them, but stopped abruptly when Nikita clenched the gun in his hand, the M6C Magnum almost wanting to shake in his hand.

"I'm sorry Michael, but little Alys is coming with us. She is going to tell us all of Eagle's dirty secrets, and you are going to leave right now, or I'm going to pop a bullet in her pretty little skull." Nikita shouted.

"You put her right down, now!" Michael demanded immediately.

"Oh, I don't think so Mikey," Nikita said twisting the shaft of the gun into her temple, "she is a valuable asset - and you are a pain in the arse!"

Michael edge faintly closer and the pain in his leg burst out a slither of pain.

"Look Michael, it's nothing personal," He said as he lifted the gun away from Alys face and aimed it at Michael's face, "get him!"

A large, hefty body lunged at Michael and grasped him around the neck and arm. Michael did not surrender, instead waited for the right opportunity to strike. His legs stiffened, but no pain. Good.

Nikita threw Alys to the side, inside of Michael's head he was screaming to unleash his built-up fury. But still he waited. Nikita turned back to Michael and strolled across to him. He inspected the gun and lifted it to Michael's forehead.

Alys ran across and the two engaged in a small fight lasting three seconds. Alys swung her left fist it Nikita's face, which was quickly countered by him spinning around and kicking her in the face.

Michael's anger increased.

She stumbled backwards but continued to fight as she charged at him again with her right hand aiming at his stomach. However, again he countered. He sidestepped and punched her in the back, forcing her into the wall.

Michael's rage swelled.

Alys rebounded off and fell to the floor as Nikita now turned to face her, pointing the gun now down to her.

Now.

Michael used his right foot to kick Nikita's right knee forwards. The male fell to the ground on his right knee. Michael stamped his right foot on top of Nikita's and launched upwards with his left foot firmly planted on his back. Michael flipped over backwards, over the top of his captor, releasing their grip on his neck. Michael grabbed hold of the person's back plate and lifted them into the air.

"Oh no you don't!" Michael growled as he heaved Nikita by his crushed foot as he tried to scurry away. He picked Nikita up by the back plate as well and turned to the wall to his left. He threw them to the wall and began to pound their heads into the wall. The shattering of the glass visors and screeching of the helmets metal and crunching of human body filled the otherwise silent air. Blood stains began to cover the wall and more dripped out of the helmets and slid down their armour.

After four brutal collisions into the wall he took them by their straps and threw them to the floor. He grunted in satisfaction as their limp bodies failed to move. Michael moved across to help Alys to her feet.

"Thanks," she said as she returned her helmet to her head, "but what did I tell you about not making a mess of anything?"

Michael chuckled slightly before flinching away with the persistent throbbing from his right knee. The soreness started to return by the time they found a medical kiosk.

After Alys patched up Michael's knee in the stillness of the night they instinctively levelled their weapons when another train whistled in the silence; the two Spartans walked off in the direction of the crash Apparition.

Michael ran across to a parked lorry and lifted up his newly acquired a Model-24 Armour Piercing Submachine gun. He surveyed the surroundings. Alys had moved around to the North while he advanced from the South. He notified that from his current position that there were some pillars holding up a large protruding structure out of the front of a taller building to his left, where as there was a massive recreational park in the centre of the streets rectangular shape. Bulging trees and expanded shrubs would provide good visibility cover rather than protection from fire arms. He would need to find a substitute. He rotated around to the other side of the lorry to see across to the East. Masses of cars were scattered about the roads, while some lay burning on the pavements.

"Michael, I can see the Apparition. How far away are you from my position?" Alys planned over the communicator in his helmet.

"Over three-hundred and fifty metres, I'm jus' findin' cover," Michael replied as he walked across to one of the vehicles and ripped its door from its hinges, "where do ya want me?"

"Converge on its location. Stay in cover and distract it while I get close enough to deactivate its defences. Once I have disabled to turrets, move up and we will enter the craft and sweep the thing from top to bottom for any Intel. I do not need to be the one to tell you to engage anything that is not human, do I?" She chuckled as her display icon of a "3" with an arrow beneath it, representing her location, appeared on Michael's heads up display.

He moved across to a park bench and put his back to the back of the bench. He punched his arm through the side of the car door to use it as a shield. Once he was satisfied with the makeshift armour-plating he peered over the top of bench to the crashed craft.

The trees of the park were evenly spaced out around the sides of the grassy lawn, but followed pathways and courtyards through twists and turns. Bushes were huddled together in the cold night air; faint lines highlighted the tips of the leaves from the two moons and the fires from the craft. The grass was cut evenly at a precise length of twenty millimetres. However, a few rebellious stragglers crept their way up and around the trees, holding on in the breeze, where the strimmers could not cut them down.

The Apparition lay partly embedded into the ground, with black smoke spewing from the purple and blue plates of the crafts of the ship's hull. The huge craft looked like a fish without fins entrenched into the dark brown and black mud. There was no cover between him and the craft.

"Get ready to move on my mark," Alys stated over the comm. "three, two, one. Mark!"

Michael nudged his way around the side of the bench and began to storm towards it. Suddenly three turrets emerged from the, what was now, the top of the vehicle as it sat upside down. He threw the base of the door into the floor and duck behind it.

"Give me a second while I just finish patching into its defence systems." Alys' voice crackled through the communicator.

Michael shifted uneasily, as the super heated plasma began to eat away at the already weak door, "Well, I wouldn't wanna make you feel uncomfortable at all now would I?" The glass shattered and sprinkles of it floated to the ground in an almost dream like glitter.

The firing stopped and through one of the burned holes in the door, he could see Alys waving him across as she stood at top of the fallen craft. After glancing either direction to make sure no one was around until he continued his storm towards the vehicle and in three jumps managed to clamber his way to Alys. She stood by some large scorched lines cut out on the base of the crafts hull. It was still attached but there was clear evidence that she had cut through it in the main supported areas to weaken it.

"I need you to smash through. We will do a 'hold-on' for lefties." She ordered as he came to kneel down by the side of the crude entry method.

"What exactly are we lookin' for?" Michael said as she knelt down into position.

"An Orb. On my mark: 3, 2, 1. Mark!"

The two bodies smashed their fists onto the outline and it collapsed through onto the ceiling. They spin around and flipped their bodies into the hole, their legs space apart from each other hanging on the lip of the hole by the insides of their knees. As they fell they drew their weapons and aimed down to either left.

Through the darkness of the twenty foot tall corridor, Michael could see that the craft had not sustained too much damage to the structure and that no living thing was in sight. A beam had collapsed from the fall and now came to lie atop an Elite on the ceiling. A thin smog held in the air was slowly moving out through the hole just created.

The darkness that filled the passage automatically activated the enhanced VISR (Visual Intelligence System, Reconnaissance) mode, which aided his vision in the gloomy numbness. The strange organic shape of the ceiling would make it hard to walk on.

"Clear." Michael stated.

"Clear," Alys copied before adding, "drop and move out."

Michael nodded and leant back up to his knees and gripped the side of the hole with his left hand while his right held the gun still pointing down the corridor to his left. As he flipped around the pain in his knee began to sink back in, so he tried to lower himself with caution. However, as he dropped the full twenty foot to the floor, the pain stabbed back at him with revenge.

"Okay, let's split up to find this Intel. Kill anything hostile and meet me here in half an hour." Alys whispered as she began to walk across the port side of the ship.

Michael followed the order and started to walk to the starboard. He continued the length of the corridor, light flickering in an attempt to stay alive beneath him. A stench of death rotted in the smoky air. Lucky for him, the helmets filtered out the smoke and most of the odour. The submachine gun sat comfortably against his should with the red dot sight extending a beam into the never-ending darkness.

Michael eventually came up to a junction. One path extended to the left from the one he was already walking on and a door rested inside the way to his right. He aimed down the left hallway as he backed himself up against the door.

An ear-splitting hiss echoed the length of the passageways. Alerted by the door opening, he spun around.

An Elite stood above him, still attached to the proper floor. It mouth was widened by shock and pain. From the corners of its eyes blue blood was slowly leaking. There was an elongated pole was emerged from the top of its head and lay implanted through its head and down its spine into the floor held it in place.

Satisfied that the creature would not be a threat, Michael ducked beneath its head and peered into the room. On the floor above him to the right was a bed, its covers had fallen to the ceiling. In the centre of the far wall was a drink dispenser with an ominous Ruby Fountain red liquid that dripped silently in the death filled room. A deathly chill ran its darkening fingers through the air as a cold blue glow emitted from a computer screen next to the dispenser.

After Michael passed between the drooping arms of the Elite, he moved across to the computer and stared up into its hypnotic blue shine. Beyond a few splats of the Elite's oddly coloured blood and the strange red fluid from the dispenser, Michael could see the remnants of an encrypted message.

Eager to discover its secrets, he opened a circular hatch on the side of his helmet, just next his ear. Inside was a lengthy cable wrapped around in the shape of the compartment and the thing he was looking for: an interface transmitter. On his toes, Michael leaned up against the wall and stretched his right arm to its fullest and wedged the transmitter into a port on the side of the workstation.

A computer window appeared on his HUD with two options: 'Connect to Host' and 'Disconnect from Host'.

"Connect," Michael stated, and the window reacted by disappearing. The heads up display turned to darkness. Suddenly, the pitch black was replaced with the same gloomy blue as the screen, with the exception of black lines filling the position where text would be and the text itself as white poorly translated English.

Michael detached his helmet from his shaven head and looked outside of the doorway. As he moved back into the room, he turned to the Elite and began to slide the body down and off of the pole. Michael's footing slipped beneath the alien as he strained to shimmy the creature down ever a few inches. Eventually he resorted to climbing on the Elite and jumping repeatedly on and off of it to cause it to judder off.

The spear sunk slowly into its head it short sharp bursts from Michael's jumping. More of the monster's blood began to drain from the new three inch hole atop its head.

Finally, after four minutes of exhausted pulling and leaping on the Elite, it was freed from his metallic grasp of the pole. The body slumped to the ground in a lifeless heap. One more look out of the door and he dragged the body in and locked the door with the holographic controls. He moved across the room and covered himself with the bed covers.

Michael wiped a bead of sweat from his contorted face and locked his helmet back onto his head.

ENCRYPTED FILES

Message log: Kelth 'Veramee, in command upon ship: Light in Shadow

**Entry 16** – Star Date: **12****th** _Cycle_ of the **7****th** _Arc_, _Age of Reclamation_

Praise the Gods! The Holy Prophet of Guidance has entitled me with the safe keeping of one of our Forefather's gifts, as it travels the span of the Galaxy to ! I am told by our Captain that even the Prophet of Salvation will be there to welcome and commend me with the [ERROR UNTRANSLATABLE].The Prophetess of Humility will be accompanying our journey, so our Captain made sure that all of us would stand with the upmost respect about and to her. He also made sure that we understood that we must attend the Prophetess' gatherings. I hear that she has something special to teach us.

[CORRUPTED DATA]

**Entry 23** – Star Date: **5****th** _Cycle_ of the **8****th** _Arc_, _Age of Reclamation_

Captain 'Tohamee issued me again with the interrogation and punishment of the Prophetess again. Captain thinks that Humility has been a nuisance since we first picked her up on [HELL'S END]. All she does is blather on about some mutant tall Elite which silences those who speak against the Covenant. Which in all truth is what her words speak of, heresy. Worse of all she blasphemes that she watched this mutant creature works for Prophet of Salvation! That our Holy Lord has been trifling in the work that only the Gods may change! I had stricken her times for each time he said such unholy and traitorous things. I guess that only our Captain knows best.

**Entry 31** – Star Date: **7****th** _Cycle_ of the **8****th** _Arc_, _Age of Reclamation_

There is something on this ship! Something big, bigger than any Elite I have seen before. It moved like a Reventage, its speed unmatched to any of my soldiers, but with the strength stronger than the Brutes! It has killer almost all of my men [DATA CORRUPTED] It seems that the Prophetess was right, and our Captain was not. I locked the door, but I can hear my men dying outside. Their cries and pleads for help for the Gods that will never come. It is going to find me soon. If anyone reads this; the Prophets are false, they do not lead the Covenant! The real leader of the Covenant i*-*/ [DATA ERASED].

Michael closed down the screen and pulled the covers off of his head.

With his new knowledge of the ships history, he looked around at the clues that he had previous missed. The door in front of him was bent slightly and claw marks were clearly visible from a frantic escape and finger holes in between the shards of the door from the violent entrance. Specks of blood and charred burns from plasma were scattered across the walls, some smoke and steam still loosely drifting up into the floor. There were also three sets of two holes that were consistently spread from its pair. _An energy sword fight must of happened_, Michael thought to himself as he heaved his body from the ground.

He look down in sympathy at the distorted body beside him, its mouth frozen open in pain, its eyes crying for mercy, the shattered spine, twisted legs and melting stomach. Michael regained his senses, the deaths that these Elites had caused and the suffering of innocent lives. His anger spiked but he controlled it accordingly.

Michael moved past the pole out into the junction and looked to the right, _that's where Alys'll be_, he though. He looked down the passage he came from, to his left.

An inspiringly massive body stood twenty-five feet away from him. A Elite, rage in its eyes and death at its hands. Just taller... a lot taller.

"Michael," Alys shouted down the corridor from his right, he turned to her voice and then back to the body, "I have found it, it is over here!"

The monster was gone. He had but a brief glimpse of the spectacle, before looking away and back again, only to see nothing. Michael debated whether to investigate, but Alys' growing impatient voice drew him back to reality. _Objective, the object always comes first_, Lieutenant Woodcock was always droning into their heads.

Michael gathered his senses and walked backwards towards Alys' voice, his gun raised at where the creature had stood. As he continued down the corridor he repeatedly almost stumbled on the ceilings strange shapes and swollen lights.

"Michael, would you hurry up! I am sure that Command told everyone else about this ship, we need to be fast!" She continued to complain down the echoing passages.

He continued to aim down towards where the being was stood, until he came across a door on his left. The tension in his body was still evident but he still quickly and hesitantly glanced across at the door to check if it was locked. It was. Something moved in the darkness, a shimmer.

"Alys, you mind op'ning the door for me!" Michael cried out, as he thumped the door twice.

The darkness moved closer, darting from wall to wall.

He howled her name again.

The faint tattering of bone and armour on metal was beginning to take shape out of the shadows. Wisps of Smoke in air parted momentarily from the lumbering monster as it came ever closer.

"Alys!" Michael bellowed, shifting as he tried to aim his gun at the creature, but it moved to fast. The door opened and he rotated in the room. "Close it!" he said as he moved around behind Alys who hung off the ceiling beside the doors console.

It shut.

Instantly, Michael sighed and his shoulders slumped with relief. He took off his helmet and smoothed his head over with his left hand. As he placed his helmet on a nearby table, he realised that the entire room was the right way up, in relation to the outside world rather than the ship.

Alys read his queried expression like a book and answered subsequently, "It is a Geo-sync station. Most Covenant ships have them. It allows them to navigate more successfully, just be glad that the Orb was in here rather than the engine rooms. They are overheating with plasma. Which brings me to my next point: this place is going to explode in about... two and a half minutes." Her voice was calm as she delivered the news, "You are actually scared, aren't you?"

"I'm not scared, I'm just nervous as all." Michael said, his voice thick with shock and disarray.

"Well, we can leave now. So I suggest that we get out the way we came in..."

"That's ova the other side of the ship!"

"...Unless you have a better suggestion?" Alys declared as she moved across the room.

The pole from the impelled Elite ruptured through the door and whizzed through the room and crippled Michael's helmet into the far wall. The two gazed at each other before turning their attention to the door, guns aimed at the fissure.

Heartbeats passed that felt like minutes as the Adrenaline poured through their blood vessels. The two Spartans continued to stare at the door, until the entire thing exploded in to the room as a gigantic shimmer of light landed on the floor.

"Okay, way we came is good!" Michael blurted as he pushed Alys through the door on the opposite side of the room to the shimmer. Michael fired a five rounds as the lumbering monster charged through the tables, throwing them aside with its lengthy arms.

As soon as Michael had moved through the door, Alys locked it. Even though they both knew it would not keep it back for long. This corridor was much thinner than the previous ones and Michael soon staggered backwards into the wall, firing an extra ten rounds into the door hoping they would penetrate through the metal.

Instead, two elongated barbs pierced through and extended across to Michael, only two inches away from his chest. He slid past it and the two fifteen year olds sprinted down the corridor towards their entry hole.

They continued to dash down the hallway, only looking back to see how far away the approaching darkness was, or to fire a few rounds to keep it at bay. The shimmer had shrunk because of the small passage but it continued with an unrelenting pace.

Red lights burst into life beneath them suddenly and all Michael could hear was a pre-recorded message in an impossible to understand collection of grunts, growls, grumbles and snorts.

"The entire ship is going to detonate in thirty seconds; we are not going to make it!" Alys wheezed from the intense running.

"Is there another way out?" puffed Michael, as he too was out of breath from running.

"Well we could try... No, wait! Take a left!" She shouted as she belted passed him.

Michael turned around to see if the darkness was closing in on them. It was gone. _Where the 'ell has it gone?_ Michael thought briefly before his right arm was tugged away by Alys. They ran across to a series of doors that were evenly spaced out across the wall, illuminated by their own pink lights and the red emergency lights.

"Come on, come on, come on!" Alys shouted both to herself and Michael to hurry, as she violently poked and prodded at buttons beside one of the doors. "Get in!" Alys shouted when the doors finally parted.

The two of them clambered into the tiny confined room and Alys punched a button so hard it cracked the display and a ripple of buttons flickered and faded from the damage.

Nothing.

"What? Why is nothin' happenin'?" Michael howled as he gazed out of the back window to find the shimmer.

"I do not kn..." Alys halted midsentence, seven seconds left, as the room juddered into life. She flew across the room and landed on Michael as it was jettisoned from the Apparition. _It's an escape pod_, he realised as the pod shook aggressively and hit something hard enough to flip the room end-over-end.

A supersonic explosion boosted the escape pod further and levelled it out. The window at the front of the pod shattered and an immense heat flooded the room. Fire licked around the opening like a tongue hungry for its Spartan meal. Some of the flames reached up and singed Michael's unprotected hair.

A second discharge suspended the pod momentarily and the two Spartans gazed down their bodies at each other. Then it kicked in. The final outburst propelled them into a brutal end as the pod became embedded and suspended in the side of a building. The room was dented inwards across one whole side of the room and small, less noticeable ones everywhere else.

Darkness seeped into Michael's mind; everything became hazy and numb. His eye lids were too heavy for him to keep them open. They dull hum of the explosion settled in his ears. The taste of blood and sweat returned to his mouth.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12 March, 13****th**** 2664/Insignificantia (Opposite End of the Stick)**

A delicate three fingered hand smoothed over the glass leaving lines of grease behind as markings.

Beyond was darkness, as it was night time within the world of the San 'Shyuum. This was just one of the levels within the entire multi-layered station, _Transsentient Gift_. It was a twenty-five thousand kilometre (in diameter) Dyson sphere which was composed of seven layers, segregating the different races, atmospheres and classes of the hierarchy.

On the inside of the outer layer was the Grunt's habitat, which had affectionately been called the "Abandonment" layer by the upper classes; named after the first Age of the Covenant. Inside of that layer was the world containing the Jackal's territories. The layer within that were the Hunters tubes that surrounded the next layer reserved for the Elites and the Lurkers (a new species just absorbed into the Covenant about twenty years ago). The second to last layer was the Brutes location. Lastly, the inner world was kept for the Prophets. All of the different layers allowed a sky to be displayed on the outside of the world that sat inside of that.

Rotating around the outside equator of the entire spherical structure on a separate platform was a massive twelve pointed star shape, named _the Cradle of Illumination_. Each anti-clockwise facing side of the points were massive harbours and docks for ships, which were protected by the opposite sides of the star which were covered with turrets and defensive platforms.

At the poles of _Transsentient Gift_ were reactors which powered an immense spire, and the planetoid itself. These reactors were powered by parts of one of the sacred Halo rings, which had been destroyed around one-hundred years ago. The scattered remains of the ring had been far to advanced for the previous Covenant to utilise but now they had the technology to exercise the remnants to their full potential. These sections of Halo were once its firing mechanisms but were now used by the Covenant to power their reactors. The power emitted by each of these reactors were not even being used to a fraction of their power but still had enough to enlighten that layers entire cities. When over charged at the spires it had the ability to explode planets and vaporise suns, but had only been activated properly three times since its creation – each time to destroy a human system.

All of the spheres rotated at different speeds to give a more consistent gravity for that level. Massive walls extended from the equatorial line in the Abandonment layer all of the way to Reclamation sphere which caused the "planets" to revolve. Towers were suspended between each of the levels to allow passage to each of the upper ones. The towers only connected at certain intervals to keep the worlds in motion.

As its eyes remained glaring through the window, the fragile hand retracted and supported its head as it lowered slightly. Thought burned through the Prophet of Salvation's mind as he smacked his desiccated lips with his sodden tongue.

The Assassin remained knelling on the warmed floor and waited for the Prophet's orders. His neck was starting to ache from holding his head so low, but the Assassin ignored it and glanced up, without moving his head. As his head hung this near to the ground it made it almost impossible to see out of the window that had the Prophet so perplexed. Patience had been acceptably forced into the Assassin's life over the past year; however, the Prophet's delayed reaction to the Assassin's presence did concern him. As he motionlessly shuffled his worry, the Prophet of Salvation turned to face him with weary, sleep-ridden eyes.

"You have done very well in enforcing our beliefs within the Covenant: that the true transcendence of Those Who Walk the Path. This time for transcendence is almost upon us, with our new technology." The Prophet was clearly proud of his illegal creation, but shifted uneasily in his floating chair. "However, secrets hide in the darkness and treachery cowers in shadows. Lies are warping the minds of our believers as they whisper among themselves with petty burned mouths, which you still must silence.

"The Prophetess of Humility has found herself stumbling upon a truth that cannot be told, as well as the existence of yourself. She has been banished, tortured and punished but still she spouts these deceitful insults. This is your target, eliminate her and hush her scorn voice. This deceiver has been taken as a prisoner from _Hell's End_ to a new security reformatory on _Once Silenced_, but you must ensure that she does _not_ reach her destination."

"As you wish, Holy One. I shall slay her voice and she shall be denied her place among the Gods. She will be, instead, dragged down to a hell so unimaginable that even torture will seem a pleasure." The Assassin smiled as he rose to his feet and came to bare his eyes upon the ageing creature before him. "Might I to enquire the name of the vessel she has is being transported by?"

"The ship is called, _Prosperous Truth_," he said as he tapped a control on his armrest. The room dimmed and a holographic display of a small Type 65 Troop Carrier, Apparition, appeared in the centre of the room. It rotated around on the projectors that were jettison from the ceiling and floor. Although it was small compared to many of the Covenant ships, it was still large enough to fit four Seraph single pilot ships in its cargo bay. The ship itself was shaped like a large three toed foot, two large appendages at the back and one at the front. Two doors on the sides and three gravity-lift holes were space across the ship.

"I shall leave at once, noble Prophet." The Assassin bowed his head and turned away to leave. He raised his head and walk out of the doors from the Prophet's dull, purple personal chambers out into a lustrous green garden.

The door behind him closed with the traditional "bloop" to signify a doors movement. His large toed feet thumped down on the metallic floor as he walked across to the railing. The Assassin placed his claws on the stone balustrade and looked out across the small garden of miniature flora that resided within a circle which sat within the edges of the staircase that encompassed the cylindrical room's walls. On the ceiling above him were holographic lights that glistened in the room's gripping darkness. A massive glass window covered the convex wall to his left, the city outside abuzz with San 'Shyuum floating around in chairs and communal transports.

_They all have a real purpose in life_, the Assassin reflected, _but what is mine? To kill, to hunt, to die?_ He stole back his thoughts; as they were the things that heresy was founded upon. He suppressed them in his mind and tried to forget them. He could not be a heretic, his father was the Prophet of Salvation. _No, my duty is to serve him as he commands me_, the Assassin assured himself as he looked up to the stars above him.

His gaze fell back down to his energy swords that he had stolen from two Elites that had stood in his way to get onto a ship on his first mission. The blood of those victims still remand on the handles – a reminder of his first kills against his closest kind.

The liquid like plasma emerged from the sword in a cold, dead silence as he raised his head with determination in his eyes, _another mission to satisfy the Great Journey's hunger_.

The Assassin's hefty body launched into the air and dented the floor beside the centre tree. He charged forward and ran eight foot up the chamber's doors before slamming his energy swords into the stone slabs. With each stab of his swords into the door he progressed up the remaining twenty-two feet towards a ventilation duct that sat beside the glowing stars.

This was his personalised passageway that he had discovered to smuggle himself in and out of the Prophet's chambers without alerting any of Salvation's personal guards. Not that he could not tear them apart without even expanding his height or strength, but because he valued their life to live as they could someday sacrifice their lives for the Prophet of Salvation rather than having some replacement that would cower away at the slightest chance of death.

He glanced once more at the garden below, which always reminded him of the flourishing Covenant spirit, before he sank into the darkness of the never-ending life supports.

The Assassin's camouflage made him practically invisible, thanks to the parts that he had stolen from many of his different kills in each of his missions. Some provided armoured protection, other parts for his shields.

Around him were ships of all sizes that were categorised by different uses. Spirits and Phantoms were closer to the hanger doors, whereas larger ships like Apparitions were further into the hanger. All of the larger ships like Carriers and Flag ships were held deep within the star construct that surrounded _Transsentient Gift_. This was not only the largest Covenant construct but also the largest assembly and repairing station in the entire of Covenant controlled space. Massive pillars held up the ceiling and other prongs extended out from them to attach the different ships to be repaired on. The ships looked like hives of little bugs that moved slowly as they passed in and out of the station.

His lumbering head peaked around the corner of the lift, lights slowly pulsating on the inside of the elevator. The Assassin observed everything in an instant and moved back into the cylindrical tube.

Outside, thirty-eight Huragok [Hu-ra-gok/Engineer] floated around on the bridge drifting between the different Phantoms. Their tentacles moved fluently around as they massaged the controls of the systems which flashed in reply. They wore little armour, and the standard explosives that had been strapped to their backs when on hostile worlds, had been removed. Their beautiful blue and purple skin flashed in the light.

A pair of Grunts sat outside of each of the five Phantoms, six Grunts on his right and four Grunts on the left. They all sat barking and yapping to each other about nonsensical, useless information – they were relaxed.

Two Elites stood in conversation, a Captain talking to his officer about the state of his ship. They wore all of their armour but no weapons, which was unusual for Shangheili.

After another brief glimpse, the Assassin could see that most of the Engineers had continued their restorations inside of the crafts, three of the Grunts had fallen asleep, the Captain was making his way onto the ship and the final Elite was pacing towards the lift that he was stood in.

The Assassin was ready.

He unsheathed his energy sword and took a stance that would allow him to snatch the Elite's head into the hidden area of the elevator.

Many heartbeats passed before the Elite finally entered the shaft. The Assassin threw his arm around the back of its head and grabbed a hold of the creature's furthest mandibles, its left two, before ripping them around the back of its head. The Shangheili spun around anticlockwise, with the Assassin priming its head to face in the direction it had come from. He slammed his energy sword into the back of its head with his right hand and activated it. The blade slowly emerged in steaming blood from the Elite's left eye and between its right mandibles.

The two aliens stood in the silent moment for what seemed like hours, as the gradually dying Elite's last breath exhaled from its mouth and the pain in its remaining eye was surrounded by the inevitable darkness.

The Assassin kept his right hand forcing the plasma into the back of its skull as he wrapped his arm around the neck of the diminishing Shangheili. It progressively slumped in his arms until the Assassin laid the creature down on the floor.

He peered back out onto the bridge. His eyes narrowed and he formed a plan in his mind as he scanned each detail about the next step.

_Now!_ The Assassin charged along the bridge and quickly approached the first pair of Phantoms, with their two sleeping and two awake Grunts.

When he reached the first Grunt on the right, the Assassin snatched its Plasma Pistol with his left hand while he prepared his right hand, gripping it into a fist. He smashed his hand into its skull. As the Grunt flopped to the side, the Assassin aimed his left arm to bare, pistol in hand, and fired at the opposing Grunts head. The green plasma glowed sharply as it erupted from the tips of the pistol. Within seconds it had collided with its intended target. The Assassin rotated back around to launch the next Grunt on his right with his left hand. The Grunt whelped as the white-hot prongs of the Plasma Pistol scorched the stomach of its environmental suit. As he swivelled over, he threw the Grunt over the top of himself towards the remaining Grunt. The Assassin rolled forwards just in time to see the body hurtle across the bridge into the sleeping Grunt on the other side. They spun over the edge before exploding from the melting environmental suit sparking the Methane.

The Assassin rolled back onto his feet to look down the bridge. Three of the conscious Grunts had become alerted by the Plasma Pistol fire and had drawn their weapons. As he approached, he could see the confusion on their faces at a murdering blur.

He aimed the pistol again and fired three times. Three shots, three headshots, three kills.

A lone Grunt stood in the centre of the bridge beside its fallen comrades, fear in its big orange eyes as the blur of shimmering light rolled at it.

The Assassin landed his left foot on the Grunts head, crushing it to the floor. With his Energy Sword activated, he swung the blades down to the floor, into the Unggoy tearing it into the air from under his foot and slipped the dead meat off the end of his sword.

Two Grunts remaining – guarding his destination, the final Phantom.

He continued to run but as he lifted his right foot from the metallic ground, he launched one of the dead grunts at the closest Unggoy. Both of the bodies rolled the remaining five feet until falling off the end of the platform.

Without hesitation, the last living creature armed both of its Plasma Grenades, fear, anger and exhaustion in its eyes.

The Assassin flipped forwards onto the Grunt and grabbed a hold of its Methane tank on its back. As he returned to his feet he threw the alien over his head and off the edge of the bridge. It grabbed at the air as it flew backwards with the grenades following close behind.

They detonated and the small creature erupted into a flaming ball of ionized Methane as it began its decent of thousands of metres to another level.

Satisfied with the death of everything that had seen him; he rotated about and walked across to the light-bridge that connected to the Phantom. When he was beneath the craft, the gravity beam pulled him up into the craft. The Assassin felt the fluids in his body rise and drift about in the mix gravitational powers.

The Assassin could see the Captain sat in the ship's pilot seat checking over crafts refitting report, completely unaware of the Assassin in the hold behind him. The Assassin glanced down at the Plasma Pistol in his hand to check the charge; enough for two shots.

He walked across to the Captain a wedged the blazing hot spikes into the Shangheili's neck. The creature whelped in pain and anger.

"Take me out of this station!" The Assassin demanded twisting the weapon into the Elite's main artery for added pain.

The Captain yelled again, but his screams of torture would not be heard nor answered, "I shall _never_ do such a thing to this Covenant."

"Wrong answer." The Assassin stated as he removed the Pistol from its neck and fired a shot into the Elite's leg. The limps exploded from the body, with charred bones and skin slowly sizzling on the deck. "Take me off this station!"

Apart from another screech of shirring pain, the Elite remained silent as the Assassin reapplied the Plasma Pistol to its neck and the ship began moving.

With the Captain's orders, the ship brightened in light and some circular controls appeared on the display in front of the Assassin. Some of the lights moved off the screens and attached themselves to the Elite's wrists and hands. The wall in front of the two aliens became ablaze with the view of outside the ship.

Augmented by the communications, all of the insect ships buzzing around their colonies now floated about with names, identification numbers and Captain's names.

A stray Engineer floated past the camera as the Captain tapped different controls to detach the ship from its supports. The light bridge beneath the vessel retracted back into the main metallic platform and the ship drooped slightly from the release of a gravity tether.

When the Assassin sat beside the Captain in the co-pilots seat, the Shangheili rotated his wrist and moved his hands forward, making the ship move backwards and fluently turn to face towards_ the_ _Cradle of Illumination_'s Phantom Slipspace external drives.

As the camera spun about, a massive Super Carrier moved past the drives. The ship was pocketed with holes and charred plates all across its hull. A massive fissure was torn into the side of the ship, just behind its hanger, which had broken through to the other side.

In the Covenant's traditional circles, lines and triangles for their language; the ships name floated above it: _Initial Hope_. The ships damage assessment was present beneath the name, reading that it had; Shield Capacitors: _disabled_, Point-Lasers: _disabled_, Cleansing Beam Operational Systems: _disabled_, Communications: _functional_, Decks 5-14 Atmosphere and Life Support Systems: _disabled_, immediate repairs request: **PENDING**.

The Assassin could tell that the ship must have lost at least three other ships its size in a battle against the Humans, being out numbered five-to-one. The massive crevice in the ships side was by a MAC blast, the Marine's most effective weapon against the Covenant.

Reasoning to himself that the ship's damage was irrelevant to his mission, he glared back at the Captain. The creature painfully manoeuvred the ship into the segmented cone, a hiss of hydraulics confirming the lock.

"State _your name, your credentials for the use of this device and your use for it._" A voice growled over the ship's speakers.

The Assassin's mandibles twitched slightly as he continued to stare at the Captain, before he looked across at the system. He pressed a circle of light and a voice recording sound system came up on the craft's camera display.

"No worry, Ship Captain is, Uhat 'Falamee. We need it to go on mission for Prophet. He said use symbol to let us through." A Grunt's voice erupted from the Assassin's mouth as he tapped another control and pressed his shoulder against the display.

The two Elite's sat in the cockpit for four tense heartbeats as the symbol went through the docking system's Craft Identification Systems.

"_My apologises for my hasty assumptions. Please proceed._" The gruff voice replied, detaching the Slipspace drive from its clamps.

The ship swivelled around and began to sluggishly propel towards the hanger's opening as the Assassin stroked different icons to disable the external communications.

"Now I must apologise. May the Prophets of Understanding, Guidance, Salvation and Shame hath pity upon my soul. All that must endure their pain, before The Coming, I pray to have a promising life in the next." The Assassin begged as he slowly raised from the chair and moved across to Captain 'Falamee.

"What do you mean? I am a high ranking officer! You shall never escape the grip of the Covenant's laws!"

"I enforce those laws. And I am sorry that you have to die for me to fulfil my destiny."

The Elite fell to the ground and clamped to the left of the cabin, looking over his back at the Assassin as he moved across with his Energy Sword in his hand. A crimson trail of blood was blotted across from the chair, where a pool had accumulated at the base beside both halves of his leg.

"We all have a destiny 'Falamee. Yours is to die, here. Now. Do not fight it, but embrace it!" The Assassin assured the edging Elite as he lifted his sword.

It thundered down.

The Phantom erupted from Slipspace and jettisoned its external Slipspace drive. The extra weight would make manoeuvring tricky without the true pilot but the device itself would add suspicion.

The Assassin had destroyed most of the internal systems, after the craft entered normal space. So some external lights flickered from their internal broken controls, creating a volley of sparks and blue flashes.

A nearby star's radiance glinted off of the side of the left hull as the ship boosted forward towards the systems most habitable planet. The planet had been called _Zenith Prime_, by the Humans. Huge dark grey mountains were protruding from the deep green forests that had engulfed the planet. In parts there were massive breaks in the emerald seas of flora into brightening yellows of sandy deserts, dull whites of the Human's cities and most of the openings broke out into vast rich blue seas that covered seventy percent of the planet's surface. Thin, almost invisible to see, strands were extended from the cities out into space.

It was an oddity for the Covenant to be so close to a Human controlled world, and not do anything about it. However, the vote to have the planet cleansed could only be done if all members of the Council, seven Prophets at the top of the Covenant's political structure, agreed on the same outcome or to come to a compromise. This had cause an outrage among _Transsentient Gift_ when the Prophetess of Valour and the Prophet of Remorse voted against the world's purification. There was almost a rebellion of Jiralhanae when the news was first announced.

The Assassin attempted to see the strands endings as he checked to make sure that he was in the Covenant's transportation route. As the ship stuttered to a halt in the passageway, he opened up a communications channel and broadcasted the signal through a reverberation-buoy that he had left in Slipspace. The signal he sent would cause any ship to receive the signal to immediately drop out of Slipspace, even against their will – it was a Prophet's distress signal.

By perfect timing, within 43 cycles the ship, _Prosperous Truth_, had been automatically pulled into real space only twenty-seven thousand kilometres away from his Phantom. Immediately after entering normal space, the ship hailed the Assassin's Phantom.

"_Is the Prophet of Salvation in good condition? Is it with his within his permission to board your ship?_" The distinct voice of another Elite crackled through the comm..

"I am fine, _Prosperous Truth_. May my ship dock with your craft, it seems to be out of working order? There is no need to send any reinforcements, my ship was destroyed in Slipspace and I was taken into this craft to escape the looming death of my ship." The Assassin stated through the Prophets speech.

"_We shall dock at once Noble Prophet. We need your advice on a matter far too high beyond our own – it is about the Prophetess of Humility._"

"Do not worry, young warrior. I shall speak with her as soon as I board your vessel." He smiled with the contorted face of his Shangheili cousins.

The camera display in front of the Assassin, became darkened by _Prosperous Truth_'s hanger and docking systems. A purple light off the side of the display silently winked at the Assassin as the docking procedures began.

A violent shockwave erupted through the Phantom as the pressures inside the different crafts equalised, knocking the Assassin over the step to the Phantom's troop bay.

Eventually, the purple light ceased to exist and the ship moved further up inside the Apparition. The display console became filled with Seraph fighters and even a few Locust anti-building vehicles. More importantly, the Assassin noticed at least two squads of five Grunts, two Brutes, two Elites and even a Vara'Kashi [Vara Kash-ee].

The Vara'Kashi were vicious, bloodthirsty, animals from the Brute home world. The aliens were aggressive pets that the Brutes used to hunt other animals and even their own kind for sport. They had elongated pipes on their heads that began above their eyes and extended out above their body, which were used to sniff out their prey. The size of these snouts allowed them to have an insurmountable amount of air receptors to pick up on tracks, giving them the ability to smell a drop of the Assassin's blood over three miles away.

Just as the Assassin recalled this information about the ferocious creatures, their heads moved up into the air and locked directly onto the Assassin. Within seconds they knew there was a hostile alien aboard the ship and began violently lurching towards the craft, eager to hunt down this new prey. Froth gurgled at their sharp teeth as their four Brute wielders struggled to control them.

A series of loud bangs at the cargo bay hatch drew the Assassin's attention as hissing Lurker's voice followed behind, "Prophet, are you unscathed? The Brute's Seeker's have picked up a scent, do we have your permission to search this craft?"

"No not yet," The Assassin's Grunt voice chirped as he moved about the ship twisting pipes apart, reconnecting others and flicking dials, "Prophet dying, we can't open hatch or he die faster."

The rattle of the Lurker's impatient quills on the top of his skull heightened his impression of annoyance and anger, "Is that a threat, fodder?"

The Assassin continued to jump about the run until finally he finished with the last bypass of removing a chip between two wires and twisting the ends together. "Don't worry we'll be out soon!" He smiled to the degree his face would contort.

Voices outside of the Phantom communed with each other as intensified motes of light began to trail along the hull of the ship. _I hope this doesn't wake everyone on the ship, I could do without the extra attention_, The Assassin thought as he engaged his Forerunner augmented shields by kneeling to the floor with his left hand placed on his helmets cranium.

After a few more brief moments, the entire ship shuddered and exploded into a flaming ball of plasma that erupted throughout the hanger, melting into the floor and vaporising the Covenant forces. Chunks of ionised hull segments collided into the walls of the hanger and some of the vehicles spread about the room. In their places was now just bubbling fluids from the metals that wept in pain, their tears pouring down the walls spreading the torture.

The good news was that the Assassin's shielding had held, barely. On the other hand, the explosion had forced him down into the floor so he couldn't move because of the liquefied floor around him slowly tightening a metallic grip around his body. He knew that soon the hull would cool down and he would be trapped forever inside the trap that had ironic caught the creator.

With his hand still placed on his head, he forced his dwindling shield reserves to push outwards into a bubble. The floor reluctantly gave in and his body, encased inside an invisible sphere, gradually was granted passage through to the deck below. Without pausing, he instantly launched himself forward into a rolled and just merely dodged the collapsing ceiling which eagerly followed behind him and began again, to eat away into the floor.

The Assassin's dark yellow eyes swivelled about the room to observe the new surroundings.

A hatch sat nuzzled into the wall on his right; which, he assumed, would open out into the airlock. Seven purple lights calmly pulsed around the access panel. The lengthy corridor was awash with the typical Covenant purple aesthetics. One passageway halfway down the route before him veered off to the right, a door opposite it on the other side of the hallway. A light touch of organic Methane in the air tingled across the extent of his nasal passages, indicating an abundance of Engineer numbers presently on the ship. There was also a metallic feathering every now-and-again from the Grunt's manufactured Methane supplies. There was a warm touch of air lightly caressed the Assassin's face, but otherwise the atmosphere was cool and bleak. Over the continual patter of metal trickling onto the floor behind him, the Assassin could he the shuffling of an almost organic material on the smooth metal surface.

MORE TO BE CONTINUED... when I find the chance =P )


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13 0830 hours, April, 26****th**** 2664/Milxitary Calendar/Special Delivery (Getting Around to it)**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14 0830 hours, April, 26****th**** 2664/Military Calendar/Under Your Hurdles (Step by Step)**

Halsey sat at her desk, twiddling a pen between the fingers of her right hand, glaring at the clock that glowed on the glass screen which stood erect from her desk. A lamp was hunched over next to the screen on the left with a photograph of John who stood saluting her. Finally after another four minutes waiting, since the previous thirteen pacing the width of the room, the screen exploded into light. Her email had arrived.

"Decryption key: GODS ON EARTH. Protocol enactment: 3-2-0-3-F-J. Name: Doctor Catherine Elizabeth Halsey." Satisfied with the beep of confirmation, she tapped the pen onto the symbol. The email filled the screen and she began to read the file.

**United Nations Space Command Priority Transmission: 34G16-77**

**Encryption Code: **Blue_Alpha

**From: **Chief Medical Officer Hyrkas, Head ONI Researcher Senior Grade 3 Eichelberger, Professor Krepps [LOCATION CLASSIFIED]

**To: **Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey M.D., Ph.D., Reinstated Project Manager (Identification Number 10141-026-SRB4695)

**Subject:**___GODS ON EARTH, UNDER HELL_ - Biological and Cybernetic resistance and rejection in regards to subject species D33-th

**Classification: RESTRICTED **(BGX Directive)

/START FILE/

Dr. Halsey,

As par your hypothesis, the test subjects did not integrate fully with the nanofibres and their muscular tissue rejected the protein solutions 1-5, however, 6 and 7 had amazing compatibility and allowed for heightened muscular regeneration and increased densities. This did not, however, live up to required standards and eventually all test subjects died.

Your hypothetical studies showed some possible truth and advanced information for someone who has come back from the dead. The different experiments we investigated are on the attached file. We hope the information will help you in some way and we shall do what we can before tomorrow's augmentations.

We have also finished with the brain scans you sent us. To our amazement, your hypothesis was correct and the assimilation of wiped biological entities coupled with beta and gamma radiation in the form of electrical pulses worked seamlessly. The completed Artificial Intelligence is also attached. We hope that your subject candidates: S-923, S-458 and S-387 are copping well, as well as yourself after the electrical discharge for this AI. You must be very engrossed into this project enough to sacrifice both your mind and three of your Spartans for one single piece of equipment. However, my colleague was not happy that you selected them and neither are we that they died in the process.

On the up side, your combination of Fission and Fusion nuclear reactors worked sublimely. With the process needing to be started with the firing of a neutron in the Fission Chamber rips apart the atoms, preferable Thorium or Uranium. As the particles break apart and release energy, the particles become less dense and move into the Fusion Chamber. Where the energy from the previous explosion helps to fuse the broken down particles, which would now be Oxygen and Carbon. When these fuse they become more dense moving back to the original chamber. All excess of 3.8Gigawhatts of energy can then be used to power the suits shields and systems.

Best of luck,

Hyrkas

/END FILE/

"Damn it! I needed those tests to be positive. What tests did they actually administer?" Halsey questioned as she closed the email and opened the attachment. Another page appeared and she removed her glasses to wipe a few specks off of the lens before replacing them upon her head.

/START ATTACHMENT/

**TEST SUBJECTS 1-28 DECEASED**

**CAUSE OF DEATH:**

_**Calcium Carbide Ceramic Ossification of Skeletal Enhancement:**_

Carbon and Calcium materials embed into skeletal structure for amplified strength and durability. Great succession within range of 36% and 38% coverage of bones, any less and bones deteriorated. Increased coverage of the bones cause them to become forcefully removed by white blood cells. Due to growth spurts, Leukaemia and Bursitis suffers will become too rigid to move.

_**Hyper-conducting Neural Incorporation with Cybernetic Fabrication of Neural Dendrites:**_

Neural uplink to electronic transduction produced a 320% increase in reactions with definite signs of increased intelligence, creativity, logic, speed of processing and memory increased in size and vividness. There is a 26.19% chance of blindness, brain damage, Parkinson's disease or even death.

_**Catalytic Thyroid and Organ-B25 Implants:**_

Thyroid gland implants helps to release human growth hormone. When coupled with Organ-B25 to release another hormone to help bones absorb Calcium Carbide intake. This combination increases the skeletal rigidness, strength and size. Minimal but noticeable number of Elephantiasis, Arthritis and Kyphosis from extended back bones.

_**Muscular Enhancements, phase 1 and 2:**_

Phase 1: A Protein complex is injected into the muscle to increase the healing rate, strength of new/old bonds to be heightened and decrease lactase recovery time. Muscles have been known to reject new proteins and deform and digest the proteins from both the injection and the patient's muscles.

Phase 2: Metallic Carbon plates are inserted between muscles of different sub-limbs, such as finger tendons, and new implanted biological and cybernetic muscular fibres. Phase increases muscle size by 650%. Possibility of continual muscle regeneration, without limits causing the subject to become too large to move or even death because of the body digesting itself to regenerate.

Carbon Nanofibres have also been looked into and further research will need to be done. So far the results show that with 30% of muscle implantation of fibres showed an increase of 7 times the host's normal strength capabilities. However, bone densities will need to be directly increased to deal with the stress of the fast acting and power.

_**Optical and Neural Capillary Dilation with Nerve implants and Deformation of Eye Lens:**_

Biological and Cybernetic wired implants increase electrical pathways to the brain, with less resistance, increasing reaction time by extra 120%. Submergence and boosted blood dilation allows more blood to flow beneath the rods and cones of patient's retina. Both increase the subject's visual perception. Lens deterioration increases the range of frequencies of electromagnetic waves that enter the cornea into the eye. Again, there has been a notable amount of blindness cases and brain damage.

_**Kavok Organ Implant:**_

The organ releases small Kavok cells that instantly repair cells that have been wounded, damaged or killed. The cells are in constant production to flow around the body and are ready to be used on demand. However, these cells have been known to cause cancers in the lungs, heart, breasts and skin.

_**Unihemispheric Slow-Wave Sleep Induction Gland:**_

A small gland implanted at the base of the skull, grown for tissues and genetics from bird, to allow for unihemispheric slow-wave sleep. This process allowed test subjects to go through five days with only two and a half hours of sleep, without becoming overwhelmed by exhaustion or being too deprived of sleep.

/END ATTACHEMENT/

_They only tested seven of my experiments? _Halsey reflected. She leant forwards and covered her face with her smooth, cold hands. She remained still for twenty seconds before removing her hands and tapped on the screen to open the other attachment. A bar appeared across the length of her screen and began to fill itself from left to right with a sea blue. Finally the bar reached the end after forty-eight seconds and a small disc embed into her desk began to illuminate. Halsey turned and watched as the ditch began to dim slightly before erupting out into a beam of light.

The figure of a man stood before her.

It had a short cut hair that measured no more than an inch. Its face was stone cut, with a pointy chin resembling Graham's. The body was covered in old naval uniform, with five starred badges hanging limply from its left breast pocket. The shape of its body was rather broad across the shoulders. Symbols from Maths, English, Science and other languages flashed and scrolled across minor parts of his body. They stretched around its stomach, up its back and centre torso, down along the sides of its legs and the inner and outer sides of its arms.

"Good evening Doctor Halsey, I see you are having a bad day. Might I also admit that some of those risks were over embellished, much of the research was bought by a mysterious and anomalous buyer, who stated you were not allowed to start your project. Thanks to many of the advances in medical professions, many of those diseases do not even exist now, and if they do in small cases, then they can be treated. You have been away for a very long time Doctor. I hope that my truthfulness has uplifted you somewhat." The AI spoke in a clear tone that appeased the ear.

Halsey face changed as she became suddenly intrigued, the AI not only could understand facial expressions very fluently, but also was able to determine the source of the problem and rectify it.

"I'm sorry but I don't think we have been properly introduced?" She asked.

"My apologises, Doctor Halsey. My name is Metamorphic Interpretations of Key Elements, MIKE for short." The glowing entity stated.

"Is all of that data a lie? Are those facts biased against me?"

"Yes, during the experiments this illusive man bought the entire project. ONI was eager to allow the project to be bought, they stated that 'Doctor Halsey's pathetic Spartans never did live up to their expectations'. They were, and I quote, 'always falling short of the required expenses, I don't care if she ever walks again, we are not going to fund a wild goose chase'."

_Great, now how am I going to get funding for my project_, Halsey considered.

"Being a part of your mind, did you really think that I wouldn't leave a backdoor entrance in the funding organisation for us to gather money behind their backs?" MIKE sarcastically stated.

"You got into the Funding Distribution of ONI? How did you manage that? No AI is allowed even allowed in any of ONI's systems, unless it in a physically contain drive separated from the system."

"I set up a fifth of my core to continually bombard their network encryptions, your mind. While all other AI's would have to focus all of their processing power to cracking it, which would take approximately 38,743,925 seconds to crack the code. It took me 63,724 seconds to seep through undetected."

"Thank you so much MIKE. That was incredibly thoughtful of you." Halsey expressed, as she turned back to the screen for one last look at the risk assessments before asking MIKE to shred the document and all of its roots back and into the sources files back at ONI. He did so with great efficiency, allowing only one—one-hundred and twelfth of his mind to do the task, rest was dispatched to integrate his systems with her network, simulate the realities of what really happened in the experiments, order in the augmentation drugs and cybernetics, open ONI's funding projects to get the money and to top it off, play some Mozart.

Halsey sat back in her chair and began to twiddle the pen in her fingers and gazed back up towards the clock.

It was time.

Everyone stood in a series of lines, twenty-one rows by ten columns, each in their designated groups, split down the middle of the room by the different halves Eagle and Wolf companies. Graham's Blue Team stood at the front beside their opposite, representing the entire student body from Eagle, behind them in order was: Ben's Green Team, Hannah's Yellow Team, Logan's Red Team, Samantha's Lime Team, Danielle's Pink Team, Derrick's Purple Team, David's Cyan Team, Jariah's Orange Team, Simone's White Team and Robert's Black Team and the other ten. Wolf Company stood beside them, in a similar pattern.

"Mother on the Deck!" Graham bellowed as all of the Spartans moving as one body made a crisp salute, their feet colliding with the floor with an immense force as two-hundred and ten Spartans feet slammed into the ground.

Doctor Halsey walked into the room from a door to their left, upon a balcony which sat above ten massive grey machines. The devices reached well over twenty feet tall, with huge doors on them to match their size. Tubes were attached to the massive cubes and either led back into the apparatus or along to the next one. The room was a monumental semi cylinder laid on its side, silver panels across the floor acted like conductors absorbing all of the electrons that entered the room, to stop them interfering with the equipment. Two steel doors were locked behind the Spartans, also as large as the doors on the machines. _I wonder why everything is so massive in this room_, Graham thought, looking around at the scale of room and apparatus. Computers lay embed into the wall behind Halsey and she came to stop in the centre of the walkway. There were no windows across the ceiling, or walls, to let any natural light into the room. The massive building was set almost five kilometres away from the main underground facility.

Over the past ten years, the Spartans had become beautifully efficient, at both killing and performing tasks. Their bodies had become strong and rigid yet fluent as their muscles became larger and more finely tuned. Their rippling muscles stretched their clothing, both sexes not making a difference. They all wore suits which had been handed out to them only half of an hour before. The suits were a skin-tight full body polymer with cybernetic implants. It should have been wrapped over their heads and cover their mouths, but most preferred to remove this restriction, until ordered different. The hair on the males had been cut to a regulation 15mm and the females at 100mm, creating a strange view of brighter and darker patches of candidates throughout the room.

"Good morning Spartans." Halsey said, standing before them, with her arms behind her and a smile on her face. "Do any of you know what is special about today, or even tomorrow?.. Please, even I know that you have been listening in on every little secret you can get your childish hands on."

Alys held up her hand with confidence, "Tomorrow is the beginning of our augmentations, which means that today is our last day as a normal human."

"Well done, Alys. This is true for those who do not know. Tomorrow you will truly become Spartans. So, we have prepared these holo-generators to see your progress over the past ten years and to let us see how much you will have improved after the augmentations. These devices will test your skills and push you to the limits. All I can ask is that you do the best you can. We will record everything inside of the generators and also display it on the outside, for both your judgement and your amusement. Good luck Spartans!" Halsey waited a few brief moments for the ideas to sink in, before she did her best to match the Spartan's previous salute.

The Spartans saluted in return, before kneeling down onto one knee on the floor. Graham's team, however, did not kneel. Along with their double gangers for Wolf Company, they were the first groups to enter the trainers. Graham looked across at his team, who all stood with the arms now down by their sides, heads held high and staring forward at each of their designated machines.

He glanced back to his generator and waited for the order.

"Alright, Blue and Alpha Teams are first up. Do something right this time, alright Alpha? Okay enter the projectors!" Lieutenant Woodcock ordered, checking down a list on a clipboard in his hands.

Both squads moved forward and the massive doors circulated inwards, revealing a blinding light as if it was by the work of a God. The Spartans walked into the machines and the doors closed behind them.

Lieutenant Woodcock finished marking down the trainees' names and squad's names, and walked along the walkway and into Halsey's secondary office. This office was a lot small than the one back at the hanger, more cosy too. A small fire screen gave the impression of a wooden fire behind the screen. Embed wall lights were posted around the room which illuminated the ceiling. Halsey stood to his left, hunched over some screens, her head darting between the ten different screens. A massive glass cylinder towered from the floor to the ceiling across to his right.

He walked across to her and laid the clipboard onto a desk that was jettison from the wall beneath the screens.

"I've finished count..." He was rudely halted by Halsey lifting her finger to his face and '_shhing_' him. In interest in what had her so interested he looked across at one of the screens; on it was Michael picking up an Elite by its head. With his other hand he punched the Elite in the stomach and threw it to the ground, before walking across and crushing its skull with his boot.

"It's amazing, they have adapted so much with your training, they are so efficient, almost too efficient!" She erupted, unable to hold in her glee. "They are defiantly ready for tomorrow's augmentations. Thank you Lieutenant."

Halsey turned to face and shook his hand as they continued to watch as the Spartans flipped, twisted changed squad and decimated the Covenant aliens that were pitted against them.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15 1728 hours, April, 26****th**** 2664/Military Calendar/Brothers in Arms (Problems Worth Dealing With)**

All of the Spartans sat wearing little more than a white shirt, usually torn, and a pair of grey trousers, which for some had also been ripped, into shorts. Their rippling muscles escaped through every visible part of their clothes.

The mess hall was a large rectangular room that extended away from the kitchen. The white tiled floor sparkled and glistened, cleaned by one of the groups of Spartans when they had lost in a game of SmackBall. The concrete gray walls and ceiling did not compliment the floor, but it did make it easier to clean, so he could not really complain. Eight inches of thick pillars were spaced evenly across the length of the hall in regular intervals. Lengthy strip lights dangled from the ceiling and brightly enlightened the room, reflecting off the floor and causing a slight glare.

Graham took the tray from the cook and turned to face the entire Spartan population. They all sat eating in the hall; their plates filled with roast beef, roast chicken, roast potatoes, peas, carrots and cauliflower.

Being the Spartans representative, he had pulled some special strings with Doctor Halsey to get them this highly rated food. He had been chosen by the majority of the Spartans to stand in for them and talk privately to Doctor Halsey for things such as equipment, training exercises and now food.

Graham looked down at his prized food and smiled as he moved across the room to his friends sat at one of the tables further away from the kitchen. As he walked past one of the tables he tripped forwards, luckily enough to catch his balance and stood up again, his tray and food still in hand. He turned to come face to face with one of the other Spartans.

"Watch where you're going, _Deputy Assistant_." The Spartan mocked, with extra emphasis on Graham's promoted status. It was Nikita, his opposite on the other half of the project group. Whereas Graham was leader of Blue Team in Eagle Company, Nikita was leader of Alpha Team in Wolf Company.

"Hey, Nikita, come on what's the matter?" Graham enquired with annoyance.

"Shut up!" Nikita growled back.

"Yeah, shut up!" Another Spartan joined in, helping the previous.

"Spartans, stand down... as your commanding officer I order you to stand down" Graham ordered, as the other two disobeyed.

"What's going on here?" Michael demanded, his head held low between the two other Spartans, facing Graham.

Michael had been set in his element for becoming a Spartan; his tall rough stature made him one of, if not the, tallest Spartans from this series. His muscles had developed much faster and strong than any other Spartan as well, giving him a distinct advantage during combat training. One large scar was engraved down from the edge of his right eye brow down to the joint of his jaw bone to his head. He had acquired this _trophy _as he called it by winning a fight against Nikita and other Spartans during the city fight when he tried to save Alys. All of these fights were becoming more and more frequent.

"Nothing. Stay out of it Michael!" The first Spartan countered, to Graham's right.

"Don't worry Michael, just leave it." Graham said.

The Spartan to Graham's left cocked his fist and attempted to punch Graham in the face. He dropped his tray of food and blocked the blow, but unsuccessfully stopping the next as the other Spartan on his right kicked him in the groin. He collapsed to the floor on one knee, holding his genitals.

Michael's face became angered and enraged. He grabbed, with both hands, onto the Nikita's left arm, and threw him aside over the table. Michael moved back and grabbed hold of the second Spartan's collar and shorts, twirled anticlockwise and launched the Spartan into a wall.

The room's once melancholy of murmuring and gossiping, became silenced into a cold darkness as everyone stopped to watch as the fight ended.

Michael roared, "Anyone else have a problem? No, then eat ya food!"

Michael leant over and picked Graham up. "Thanks Michael," Graham said, as he gasped for a fraction of air.

"No problems," he answered, picking up the trays of the two Spartans, "have this one instead. Now come on, I hear Lewis has some better jokes today."

"Let's hope its better than last weeks!" Graham laughed, finally able to breathe but still a wheeze in his voice.

Graham and Michael walked off to their table, sniggering. Alys got up from the table and ran across to hug Michael, who lifted her into the air before setting her back down onto her feet. Her brown hair floated about her like mist in the morning sunrise. They kissed each other on the lips until the worried look on her face distracted them both.

"What's the matter?" Michael asked with a questioned look on his face.

"You could have gotten hurt again, remember the last time you got into a fight with those two?" She complained, smoothing her hand across the scar on his face.

"I ain't just gonna leave my best mate on 'is own." He replied nodding to Graham, who nodded back.

The three of them stood, while the other two sat, without movement for a few brief heartbeats, until Lewis broke the awkward, deathly silence, "Well, what's done is done. _I've _got some new jokes to tell!"

Michael turned to Alys and kissed her on her cheek, "Ha, I hope there better than last time's!"

"Oi, what is that supposed to mean?" Lewis snapped, laughter fizzing in his voice.

"Don't worry." Michael said, moving around the other side of the table to April and Lewis who had sat at the table for the entire conversation. Graham shuffled across and sat down next to April, as Alys sat on the opposite side. The dining table was now primed for Michael. He sat down and the entire table rocked backwards, towards him and Alys. Graham's feet could still touch the floor, but Lewis struggled to keep his feet on the ground so they dangled down beneath him.

"I should really ask to get these tables bolted to the ground." Graham Mumbled to himself.

"Nah, it's okay. So, Lewis, what are these amazing jokes then?" Michael questioned.

"Ha ha, well okay so the Marine walks across to the insurrectionist and said..." Lewis chuckled to his own jokes as his voice became distant compared to the thoughts buzzing like insects, burrowing inside of Graham's head.

_Something really does not seem right at the moment; everyone is acting really strange_,he contemplated, _I'm going to have to have a talk with Doctor Halsey_._ I just don't understand why everyone is so angry at the moment_.

"... and so he says, 'what do you think I am? An Insurrectionist!' " Lewis laughed; nobody else joining him in the laughter. "Come on, that was golden. I'm better than the rest of you." A few chuckles came with a hint of sarcasm.

"_Could Spartan-387 report to my office immediately_,_ please_." Halsey's distinguishable voice lightly danced from the speakers in the hall. Another chilly silence burned in the air. His mind filled with an eerie instinct to run.

Graham stood from the table, after Alys, to rearrange the weight distribution, and walked towards the nearest exit. He pushed both of the two inch steel doors open with his hands and continued his swift movement down the lifeless corridors, the black natural granite only furthering the scorch on his mind.

Graham meandered through six long hallways, before walking up two flights of stairs and turned a corner to found a massive single, steel-bolt door. We walked to the right-hand side of the door and placed his hand on the pad. Contrasted against the rest of the islands facilities, this was the only high security door he had seen, and all it had was a simple three bolt lock and a hand pad. The bolts hissed as the high pressured gas was liberated from the pistons, releasing its grasp on the Cysterleen door. The midnight blue door cracked into perfect halves and divide away from him. They burst out into the room, announcing his presence to anyone inside.

He took five confident steps into the room, stood tall and proud with a salute already to his head before he had realised it. His crisp uniform of shambled clothing was vastly worse compared to the grey-blue garments that Doctor Halsey had embracing her ever-ageing body. The greyness of her hair was vanishing into a thick blanket of elderly white hair. The wrinkles on her faced had become more focused around her eyes and mouth and her lips becoming ever paler. Some of the awards and medals on her chest and shoulder helped to both add colour to her as a whole but also causing the very little colour left in her skin to become more diffused.

Her arm moved forward and tapped a control, which caused the room to become a lot darker where it had once been filled with an omniscient blue tone. Graham recognised the familiar glow as an AI,_ but Cybil was out of the facility at the time_,_ off on a trip to a nearby city on a close planet..._ _apparently_.

"Graham, there you are." Halsey said, turning to face him, her delicate voice soothing his ears. "Now I assume that you know, why I have asked you to come to my office."

"It's about the Spartan's behaviour, isn't Mother?" She preferred to be called 'mother' or 'mum' these days, it _gave her a loving perspective on her work_, she had said, _and how she treated the Spartans_.

"Yes, yes, once again you are spot on. Obviously we think in very much the same way, you and I. Well, yes the Spartans are different. Have you figured out why yet?" She asked, Graham just merely shaking his head slightly, "I will not mess about Graham; it's your food. For the past seven weeks we have been pumping testosterone and oestrogen, depending on whether the person was a male or female, into the food you have all been eating. The process was necessary for tomorrow's augmentations. The hormones were put in to prepare your bodies for the radical changes in your muscles, bones, nerves, basic mental function among other things. As you well know, the hormones cause changes in the human body, but these are just a bit stronger than the conventional puberty."

The two of them stood in a cold, heartless silence until Graham voiced his opposing thoughts about his beloved family, "I understand the implications of what you are doing. I. I just don't understand how you could do that to _your_ Spartans, _your children_. They are, we are Humans, just like you. How could you bring yourself to play with the genetics and lives of other people?"

"I have done many things in my life time, unspeakable things, for the greater good of mankind not just the man. Human evolution takes place ever so slowly as we have reached a point of higher ability. There is no need for Humans to evolve, but we have to. To win this war, once and for all. I have been talking to you about these augmentations for almost three months now, when you were appointed to my side by '_our_' family. You had nothing to complain about then, nor during the time leading up to now. What has changed your mind all of a sudden?" Halsey asked, concern heavy in her tone of voice.

"I don't know, I think it is just the hormones. But you should have told me about them being implanted into our food. I guess though that it is more of your operation rather than mine," his tone now becoming more stable and calm.

"Yes I can see that. As a result, I am going to try and balance the affects of the hormones by issuing a social gathering, a prom if you will. To celebrate all of your hard efforts and to wish you all luck for the augmentations tomorrow. I have also called in an air supply of dresses and tuxedos for you all to wear, so there will not be any need for any of your little friends to highjack the plane." Doctor Halsey mentioned as she walked around the desk up to Graham and placed her frail hand on his left shoulder.

She retracted her hand and stood back away from him, as he lifted his right arm again and saluted his goodbye. She walked across to her desk and looked down at the contents laying on its surface. Graham's posture suddenly changed as he heard a quiet voice. He lowered slightly and faintly lifted his arms, almost coming to bare a fighting stance. He focused entirely upon her. His pale blue eyes darted across her elderly body, accessing every movement she made. Her head twitched slightly to the right and she began to raise her hand to dismiss him immediately but was abruptly stopped by the same voice, a human voice in her ear piece that sat around her left ear neatly beneath her falling hair that draped down behind her shoulders.

Before Graham could say anything, she tapped a control on her pen. The room became filled with the same eerie blue haze as an AI materialized before him. The male figure stood eye-to-eye with Graham, with a flare in its soul. C_ybil had been replaced_, he thought with anger burning into the deepest reaches of his heart. The being stood in an old fashioned naval outfit. There was no insignia upon its arms. It could not hold rank against him. It had short cut hair with a stiff and hard defining face. Its shoulders were almost as broad as Graham's. There were also a considerable amount of features that resembled Graham's throughout the AI's characteristics and stature.

Graham leaned to the side and glanced through the AI as if it was not there, "What the hell is this? Why have replaced Cybil with this! No one will like this, none of them. She was our teacher and our friend; and now you have just discarded her and thrown her away, is that it? Is everyone just dispensable to you?"

Catherine's faces became distorted with anger and disappointment at Graham. However, before she could counter to his argument, the AI turned to the side and lifted its arms and hands to stop them. It looked at both of them before saying, "Please do not fight, there is no need. Doctor, you were right, I should have closed down before he arrived and should not have forced you to open the holo-projector. As for you Spartan-387, you should try to control yourself better. I have not replaced your beloved Cybil; I am her substitute, yes, but only as she has moved to another part of the planet."

"What do you mean 'another part of the planet'?" Graham said silently.

"Because it is classified information, I should not tell you. On the other hand, you have already seen me before my time is due, so I guess that the Code of Conduct has already been broken. Therefore I assume that you can know the rest. This facility, among the others on this continent, is just one body of land. Halsey decided that Cybil should teach you all that this was the only land mass on the entire of Zenith Prime, to keep you all contained on this island and not get delusions about swimming off to find your own way in life. Cybil was sent to one of the Orbital Defence Platforms, as a failsafe. She was the closest AI with enough potential to load the Platform, use it with precision accuracy and to communicate with all of the other Platforms across the planet. The cities where they are located are controlled by 4th generation 'dumb' AIs. These AI counterparts, although extremely useful and control many of the cities functions at the same time, do not have the clearance to use the MAC (Magnetically Accelerated Cannon) and that they were needed to keep the cities calm. The loss of one of the most useful and practical constructs of the area would cause masses of unnecessary panic."

"Why would they need to be calm?" Graham asked, confusion eating away at his mind. _Why has Cybil been moved? Why does she need to be there? Why can't this AI perform the task? _All of these questions stormed about inside his mind, throwing about his emotions with love, anger, despair, hatred and loneliness.

"We could very well be under attack, Spartan. When you and your team were dropped into a hot zone last month to eliminate an Insurrectionist threat, two of your members, Spartans -457 and -444 were instructed to secure non-human technology. A Forerunner object from a Covenant ship. They will mostly likely have tracked the ship or the object itself, so we will have to assume that they will come back to apprehend it. So, unless the Covenant, by some miracle, hasn't seen their fallen ship yet, then they will most certainly attack us with a 98% chance of planet wide destruction. Our only defence is the fourteen Orbital Platforms each equipped with four alternating MACs. By our best guesses, with captured Covenant communication technology, that it will take five months to reach any major Covenant installation and then an extra three months to gather enough forces before a one and a half month journey to here. Then they will be able to launch a search and destruction attempt by the beginning of next year."

"What! That is over nine months away, we can still gather enough force to form a good enough defence. We can still win! Or at least evacuate."

"No. We are on a world that the UNSC does not consider to be of... high enough to be a prioritised defence position. Few of the continents here are actually governed by Insurrectionist leaders so they would not enjoy having their most hated enemy trying to help them. Anyway, the forces that we would need to at least win, even with the maximum of losses, we would need at least two years to gather a force of over three hundred and forty ships. Now unless you have a better idea, this planet will die if we do not think of an alternative." The male figure debated, more than informed.

Graham stood in deep thought, his face twitching slightly at the thoughts, "Are those Defence platforms the _only_ defence we have? Because I'm pretty sure we have got two hundred and ten Spartans waiting down stairs, raring for finally getting into a real fight."

"None of you are ready yet though." Halsey stated.

"But we have almost a year to get ready. We will just have to step the program forward, because I know my Spartan's will be ready. It's worth a try Mother."

"I will think about it and I am guessing that I have _your_ permission this time?" Halsey sarcastically stated, but still with a grave sense of seriousness in her tone of voice "Until then, you are dismissed; you have a prom to get ready for."

Graham saluted, turned on the heels of his feet and walked out of the door.

"He is very demanding isn't he?" The AI said, as Lieutenant Woodcock walked into the room. The Lieutenant was wearing a Black tuxedo with a striped, amazon beat to sky blue, tie. A red napkin was neatly tucked up into his top left breast pocket. The vertical silver bar of his rank proudly boasted upon his right arm, just recently polished enough to gleam in the darkest part of the room. His shoes matched his insignia, as they too had also been polished so it was possible to see the room again; in a black hue. The tuxedo concealed his leather belt which tightly gripped his hips, as his trousers were two sizes too big for him.

"Yes, he is." Doctor Halsey answered, walking around the desk, straightening her skirt and sitting down with her hands intertwined through each other on the desk. "Do you think that they are ready?"

Woodcock and the AI answered in opposites: the Lieutenant responded with yes, while the MIKE answered no. Their faces met in conflict with one another, their eyes smouldering into each other's souls. Halsey's feeble hands withdrew and she tapped her chin with her right hand. The two male's gazes lowered and they looked back to Catherine.

"Why are there different verdicts, Mr Woodcock?"

"In my personal opinion, they are ready. They're better than my strongest squad, or my fastest team or my finest company. They think tactically and with great efficiency, even under the pressure of weapons fire overhead. Even last month when we sent them over to the other islands to help out Cybil, even though they thought it was a simulation in the gaming tubes, they still performed efficiently and without any major problems. They went up against real Insurrectionist threat and won, without even realising it. I know they are ready."

"Very true, Lieutenant. MIKE, what do you think?" Doctor Halsey pushed further.

"Ma'am, their performance is irrelevant if they do not have the strength or the technology to fight." MIKE stated.

"Well, that's not strictly accurate. I have been developing prototype suits for them to wear and as you well know they are going to begin their augmentations tomorrow. Now, do we have a plan?"

The three of them nodded in agreement. _I wonder how long it will take to get to the point where we can attack before they do_, Halsey pondered to herself.

She leaned forward and tapped a button on her desk, next to a microphone that was jettison for the tabletop. The speakers in the room screeched into submission before repeating her words across the entire island in each facility.

"Spartans, as congratulatory thanks for all of your hard work, I have discussed with your Head Assistant and Lieutenant Woodcock, that there is going to be a prom held in the Committee Island Hall tonight. All dresses and tuxedos can be acquired by contacting your Head Assistant, Lieutenant Woodcock or I. The selected outfits will be posted on computers, note boards and class rooms for your discussion and purchase. Just one last note, a happy birthday to Alys is in order." Catherine spoke into the microphone with a smile across her face.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16 2008 hours, April, 26****th**** 2664/Military Calendar/Unyielding (Something to Remember)**

Graham rubbed his forehead and took a long sip from his glass of water, hoping that their water too had not been drugged with hormones.

He gazed down past his bolt-up right statue to his form fitted tuxedo, which had been personally picked out by Lieutenant Woodcock. Since Graham's promotion, the two of them had become good friends, even sometimes convincing the Lieutenant to join in with the Spartan's tug-of-war games. His suit was a darker shade midnight blue which beamed every-so-often with lighter blues from the intense beams of the room. His tie was an individual favourite, which he had to insist against Woodcock to let him wear it. It was a royal regatta blue, with horizontal azure blue stripes from tip to base. A pearl white handkerchief was neatly folded into quarters in his left breast pocket, with a golden thread that weaved the five layered material together. His trousers were freshly creased into orderly lines on the front and back. The polish on the sides of his shoes was beginning to wear away after the past two hours of walking across the entire island to meet with different groups of Spartans and Mother Halsey.

His eyes moved up and about the room, observing all of the flickers and lances of lights that danced and pumped around the room to the beat of the tune. Rainbows of sound and light matched the pulsing of movement as the rock music echoed within the wooden room. To his right was a long bar for drinks that had been set up within the day, stalls slumped where the Spartans were sat on them. Marines stood on the other side of the bar, serving drinks to the Spartans, dress in the classic black and white waiters clothing. Along his left was a series of wooden walls and glass windows; that touched the ceiling and floor. The sunset from outside created an orange hue in the hall.

"Heyya, Captain! How you doing?" A Spartan yelled walking up from behind him in the corridor.

Graham turned to be met with the eyes of a broader shouldered Spartan, Ben. His clothing was almost identical to Graham's, just his jacket being pure black rather than blue.

"Evening, Ben. How are you?" Graham replied.

"Not too bad at all. I can see your just fine, you look like you're about to cry and you don't seem to be with it at all! What's on your mind?"

"Nothing... its, nothing."

"Okay, fine. So are you going to ask her?" Ben pressed on.

"What? No I, I can't. I mean, I've got other things to do. Anyway aren't you supposed to be with Hannah right now?"

Ben stood by Graham for a few brief moments with a look of shock glaring back at him. "Damn-it, I knew there was something I'd forgotten!" The Spartan turned and ran back down the corridor he had just entered from, until turning right.

"Ben her room is left!" Graham shouted down the passage.

Ben's body ran back passed in the right direction as he shouted back quickly, "I knew that!"

Graham chuckled before turning back to the party again. He continued to stand in the doorway of the main passageway, up the small flight of stairs that spanned the width of the room.

He was just about to take another sip of his water until he saw Michael on the other side of the room, dancing with Alys.

The two of them continued to dance in upbeat and erratic movements, before being halting by a change in music. A slow paced piece began and they became one with each other. Their bodies swayed from side-to-side, Alys' eyes gazing into Michael's. She rested her head onto his chest as he looked up. Michael glanced across and saw Graham staring back. The two nodded to each other and Michael tilted his head across to the side of the hall, beyond the windows.

On the other side was a figure leaning up against the railing on the side of the balcony. Graham looked back across to Michael, who nodded again and smiled. He gazed back down at Alys as she pulled her head away from his chest and they kissed together.

Graham glanced back across at the windows and began to walk pass the other Spartans that were dancing together to the romantic sounds of violins, pianos and other classical instruments.

When he reached the open window, he gazed out to see her stood with her elbows on the wooden railing. Her strapless dress joined halfway down her back and flowed down to her feet. Large swirls and stars glinted in the sunset rays. The martian skies blue dress was widely wrapped around her with white frills that hung off of the edge of the material. Her black hair made her easily distinguishable as April, even though it had been cut down to no more than the base of her head.

Graham walked across to her with one hand behind him and the other in front with his glass of almost empty water.

"Beautiful, don't you think?" Graham said, as he walked across and stood beside her with his back straighter than normal.

"I know, isn't it just? I've always loved the sunsets here." She replied, her voice quiet but still able to be heard over the music.

"I wasn't talking about the sunset." Graham smiled, gazing across to meet her hazel eyes.

"Since when have you been a charmer?" April countered, also smiling.

"I have my moments. But the sunsets here are lovely. The day is not quiet finished, but the night has not yet begun. The twilight world of the brightest days starts to become engulfed into the darkness of night."

"Stunning," April echoed. "So what is the matter?"

"What do you mean?"

"Graham. You are stood up straight and the only time you start doing stuff like that is when you try to act like you aren't intimidated. You're like a little bear or something. But you are worried though, aren't you?"

"Since when did you take that much notice of the way I acted?"

"'I have my moments'," April giggled, "but what's the matter?"

"It's just the pressure. We have got our augmentations tomorrow, and Halsey has been doing things without consulting me. It is just starting to frustrate me."

"Well, loosen up a little. It's our last night being a normal human. I heard that they're letting us do whatever we want to tonight."

"That's another thing, everyone is going gah-gah over the fact they get to have sex tonight. Nobody even knows why, not even me" Graham's voice was starting to become deeper and filled with anger.

"Graham, like you said 'we have got our augmentations tomorrow', it is just a bit of fun."

"No, it's not just that though. Everything is changing!" Graham threw his glass over the banister into the fields below, with a satisfying crash. He stormed off into the building and pushed passed everyone.

"Graham! Graham, come back!" April yelled striding after him.

She walked into the building and looked around trying to find him. As she stood searching, a Spartan walked across to her.

"Hey babe, you know we can do what we like tonight." The drunken Spartan burped, his intentions obvious.

"Look I'm trying to find Graham did you see where he went? If not then, shove off!"

"Oooo, I like them when they're feisty."

Lewis walked across to the molester and his sister, "So what's going on here then?"

"Nothing!" The Spartan replied, grabbing April under his arm. She motioned a slicing movement with her hand past her neck.

Lewis looked at her and then to the Spartan and looked down at his feet. "What is that?"

The Spartan looked down to the ground and Lewis brought his knee up into his face, with his hands cupped on the back of his head to hold it steady. The male collapsed to the ground and Lewis pointed to a doorway, indicating Graham's direction.

April ran off down the indicated hallway, as a group of Spartans and Marines began to surround the fallen soldier. She thundered down the corridor as fast as her heeled shoes would let her. She ran across the length and breadth of the facility. Most of the lights had been turned off across the buildings to save on the power, but she could see well enough to realise that he was not in any of the class rooms or dormitories.

As she re-entered the complex to return to the party, she could, over her footsteps, hear the dull thumping of someone punching a bag. She walked across to her right and peered into the room. Graham stood on the other side of the room, beyond a boxing rink, striking a punching bag. One light hung low in the centre of the room, above the boxing rink. He snarled and growled with the anger boiling in him.

"Graham, are you okay?" April whispered, walking into the room with confidence.

Graham instantly stopped and turned to her, shock and anger on his face. His tie had been taken off and half of the buttons on his shirt were undone. "I was just, uh. It was just..."

April walked across and took hold of his hands to stop him from moving. She looked up into his eyes as he looked into hers. "Graham, just don't keep shutting everyone out. We are going to graduate shortly, please enjoy the last moments of freedom. At least for me."

The two hugged for a long heart beat. Graham got his tie and sorted out his uniform making it neat and tidy again. The pair walked back down the passageways to the main hall, where the party had been continuing on.

They pushed open the doors. On the other side, the entirety of the Eagle Company stood staring at them, glasses in hand.

Lewis moved out of the crowd and walked in between the two of them, "Congratulations you two. Especially to you Graham, not everyone gets a girl that's almost as good-looking as her brother!"

"It looks like he's already had his fun with her!" Ben shouted from the audience, holding Hannah in his right arm, raising his glass in his left into the air in a victory cheer at the sweat on Graham's brow.

"Um! Excuse me! But what the hell, do you think you're doing!" Graham bellowed pushing Lewis back down into the group of Spartans and wiped the sweat off of his forehead as the room fell into an awkward silence. "As you can plainly see, it is dark outside! Which means that it is night time!" He Shouted. Lowering his voice to a happy bellow, he smiled, "So you should all be having the time of your lives back in your rooms, what the hell are you still doing here! Go and have fun!"

The entire hall became an uproar of deathly bellowing and cheering. Graham and April parted on either side of the doors, allowing the others to pass between and go to their dormitories. The two of them left and walked back outside and leant up against the bars, looking out into the darkness.

The air was still warm but there was a cool breeze that whistled quietly through the nearby trees. The stars dazzled in the dark blue blanket that had been pulled across the sky. Crickets and animals hooted and ticked into the shadowy distance. A familiar scent of pine freshened the night. The two turned to each other.

They moved closer to one another. Before they touched they both pulled away, looking back out into the night sky.

"I'm so sorry, we've... I've... it's just..." Graham stuttered, with a hint of red building up in his eyes. The warm air became colder all of a sudden.

"No, no, no it was my fault. Umm, maybe we should, err, just go back, and err, go to sleep?" April said looking at the dew that floated back up into the air.

"Yeah, maybe that is a good idea... Oh, sorry." Graham winced and the dew slumped down like tears, rolling off of a face, onto the floor. They moved back into the building but Graham turned back to the window. _That will be us one day_, _up among those stars_, Graham thought as he turned back and began to walk back to his bedroom.


End file.
